Running Back and Forth in Pine Park

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It was never my intention to participate in the Upper Valley Segment Running Challenge. As the organizer, it felt weird to simultaneously oversee a challenge and compete in it. But I changed my mind when someone – jokingly, in good fun – gave me their thoughts on the whole thing:

“The Segment Challenge? Oh yeah, I heard about that! Isn’t that the thing where you have to run along a small small stretch of land like a million times? That’s the exact opposite of what I want to be doing. I want to be running as many segments as I can, the least possible (non-zero) amount of times. I want to be exploring as wide an area through running as I’m able to.” 

This perspective hadn’t really crossed my mind, even though it’s a sentiment that I immediately knew I shared internally. It’s a feeling I’ve tapped into every time I’ve preferred a looped-course over an out-and-back, or every time I’ve gone out to run with the intent of exploring (which is many times!) 

So then it became a matter of “getting a taste of my own medicine”, of not being above having to try the thing you’ve set up. It’s like when you go to a barber and maybe subconsciously judge their hairstyle. If it doesn’t look great you might be slightly more concerned about your impending appointment. I know the analogy falls apart since most barbers I imagine do not cut their own hair, but I hope you see what I’m getting at. I didn’t want the challenge to seem like it was constructed to ensure mental warfare on its participants, and one of the ways I thought I could communicate this was by showing, “hey! even the person running the challenge is excited enough about it to be participating!”

Besides, I was also just really curious about what the experience might be. Despite the shared sentiment with the individual for whom this challenge really was not appealing at all (which is totally fair!), I – maybe paradoxically — simultaneously had an incredible enthusiasm for the whole thing. Upon hearing about the challenge that inspired it in January, I was immediately caught hook, line, and sinker. I was so gung-ho about the format; it really spoke to the qualities of running that have always appealed greatly to me. Persistent, dogged, unrelentingness, both in the physical act of running and the requisite mental fortitude. Sprinkled in with a kind of fun arbitrariness, reflected in the randomness of it all – why is this the segment? why does it only count one way? how did I end up here, having lost all sense of time, running back and forth and back again in the woods? Just why do we run anyways?

Funnily enough, taking away one reason for running – the dimension of exploration, of covering wide swaths of ground – reinforced for me how much I love running for the sake of running itself. There is just something about your state-of-being in a run that momentarily changes how you experience the world. And by God is that experience intoxicating.

The segment challenge gave me new reasons to love running as well. Pine Park for the month of May became a second home. When I’d go out for a run, I’d be thinking of “checking” on the park, seeing how it’s doing. I’d be thinking of the family of deer who seemed to live right at the start of the segment. Would they be skittish today and avoid me? Or would they continue to graze, unfazed as I ran past? Would the low hanging leaves from the one tree (that sometimes seemed to deliberately smack me in the head) hang lower today on account of holding the rain? Would the roots that I’ve tripped on tens of times over hide themselves in mulch, spilt over by the dogs roughing the trail earlier? 

The feeling, I hoped, was reciprocal. I like to think that the park missed me while I was gone. That the family of deer wondered whether the crazy runner would be showing up today. That the roots rolled their rooty-eyes and groaned exasperatedly while bearing the brunt of my footsteps.  

Knowing a place so well, it’s every nook and cranny, is something special. The place becomes a part of you, and you become part of the place. Pine Park, even before this segment challenge, had long been my go to run. But running this little segment, over and over and over, gave me new and distinct ownership. I don’t actually believe in the concept of owning land, but I think the closest you can probably get is through running. To “own” the land is to run the land, or at the least, to spend time with it. I’m sure I heard that somewhere, and even if I’ve forgotten where, the challenge has ensured I remember it.

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I have many more thoughts here, too much to fully flesh out, so I’ll put some bullet points below:

  • There definitely was a period of buy-in. I remember the first “segments-run” to be pretty grueling, partly because I was in recovery mode, but admittedly partly because of the introduction to a new mental game.
  • Once I got into the flow of things, there was something very soothing about zoning out and knowing exactly how much to run, when to turn around, how long it’d take, etc.
    • I’ve been meaning to add more speedwork to my running routine, and I think I will incorporate sessions up and down the segment – and I promise it won’t be Stockholm syndrome!
  • Lots of people love pine park like I do. There were many familiar faces that grew even more familiar throughout the month
  • I wish I had started sooner! But unfortunately I had some races planned in the beginning of May which hindered mileage – here are those race’s recaps:
  • The competitive aspect of it was incredibly motivating. It reminded me of when I was a kid; I would run home to check the computer for chess competition results that had been released earlier. I’d be so excited to see what other competitors logged that day, and I think I literally laughed out loud when I saw Ben Jones’ first marathon on the WRJ segment
    • Meeting Elijah (a fellow pine-park segment runner) on the course was very cool. It made the challenge feel so much more real and hyper-accelerated both our competitive gears. And he really dropped the mic with his final 100km (!!!) run
    • Dan Collison’s approach to running all the segments 31 times was a very unique approach to the challenge! Also quite motivating and awe-instilling was his sheer consistency – like a train that just did not stop in its tracks
    • Ryan’s historical blurb that accompanied his WRJ runs really made me want to run there (but alas, not having a car hurts in that regard) and try to live the history myself – it also made me think about how different the segments were and the very different experiences that must have come with it.
  • I have a newfound appreciation of running on dirt/trail. So much more comfortable and injury-preventative than running on pavement.