The NH Grand Prix is a 5 race team competition and the UVRC finished 3rd out of 8 teams. Faster times earn more points but the main way for a team to do well is to have a lot of participation. UVRC had a lot of people participate--88 runners did at least one race! UVRC had great participation in 3 of the events but not in two races farther away. If the NH Grand Prix had been just the 3 closest races (Skip's Run, NE Half Marathon, and Track 5K) we would have won the series by 700 points! It was a great effort and a fun set of races.

The NH Grand Prix started out with the Nashua Soup Kitchen run. UVRC had a great van full go and a few other runners came down. We just did not match the large numbers of 3 other teams and started the season in 4th place.

Skip's Run then saw the best participation of any club in any race all season. UVRC had 52 runners show and scored just under 1600 points better than the next team! UVRC was in first place after that race.

Next was the hot and hilly Sandown 5M. UVRC had a nearly full van but just not enough runners to get many points.

The team had two Tuesday NIght Track sessions where people ran a 5K for the series (everyone could submit their best time). UVRC had great participation and 40 people ran.

Finally, the season ended with a NE Half Marathon from Hopkinton (NH) to Concord. Despite the distance of the race and the drive to the finish line UVRC had a decent turnout with 21 runners.

While the NH Grand Prix is a team competition if you run all 5 races you get to be a Granite Runner (I believe the prize is carving your face on a mountain somewhere but maybe the prize is something else). Both Tom and Pam Moore completed all 5 races as well as myself. RJ deserves special mention for running 4 of the 5 races but only missing the half marathon because he had to drive the van to the finish line (they can still carve his face on the mountain for that).

Pam Moore was the top point scorer for the whole series (!) as well as UVRC and Laurie Reed, despite missing the half marathon, was 4th overall and second for UVRC. I finished 3rd for UVRC and second overall for men.

In addition to those mentioned above, Patrick Luckow, Geoff Dunbar, Helene Sisti, Nadia Lafreniere ran 4 of the 5 races. Nancy Dunbar, Keri Niles, Julia Neily, and Shelby Whittet ran 3 races. 14 runners ran 2 races and 61 runners ran one of the races!

The New Hampshire Grand Prix website is at: https://www.nhgp.org/.

Let us know if you have any ideas for races that should be in the next year’s Grand Prix!