Best Places: Three Iconic NH Road Races

Do you like long, gnarly trail runs over rocks and roots and up and down mountains, or easy-rolling sun-dappled backroads through farm country, or maybe fast pavement in a crowd-thronged downtown?

There are so many great races, and so many personal preferences and elements of chance that make up any runner’s “best” race or run, that it would be folly to pick the three “best” for the whole state of New Hampshire. Rather I’ll just say, here are three of the best New Hampshire races I’ve run in our great state over the years.

Reach the Beach
Sept. 13 -14, 2024
www.runragnar.com/event-detail/road/reachthebeach

For the sheer terrain covered and sights seen, Reach the Beach is hard to beat. The race is a relay from Attitash Mountain to Hampton Beach. You can run it on a 12- or six-person team rotating through the lineup and running either three or six of the legs. I’ve done both several times and love the six-person “ultra” experience. Less downtime, more running. You run all afternoon, all night by headlamp, and into the morning as dawn breaks over the Seacoast. Way back when, I was on a male masters’ ultra-team that won the division that year, and it remains a high point in my running memory.

Elliot Northeast Delta Dental Corporate 5K
Aug. 8, 2024
www.millenniumrunning.com/corporate5k

Want to get shoulder-to-shoulder with 5,000-plus runners and walkers, and throngs of spectators, for a fast 5K in August in the heart of New Hampshire’s largest city? The Elliot Northeast Delta Dental Corporate 5K, hosted by Millennium Running, is a speedy course despite the crowds – or maybe because of them. Runners come from all over for this one, and corporate teams compete to raise funds for the Solinsky Center for Cancer Care at the Elliot. Last year our own Yankee Publishing, Inc., fielded a large team and can attest to how much fun it is. The times laid down here also attest to the runability of the course, including a sub-14-minute finish in 2003. While I’ve never run anywhere near that fast, I also set my personal 5K personal best here.

Clarence DeMar Marathon
Sept. 29, 2024
www.clarencedemar.com

This marathon is named in honor of Clarence DeMar, a Keene resident who was an Olympic marathoner and seven-time winner of the Boston Marathon, a record that remains unbroken to this day. His last win was at age 41, also making him the oldest winner ever. That may be why this was the race I picked when I returned to marathoning in my 50s after a six-year hiatus. I ran it in 2021 and was blown away by both how runnable it is (it’s fast!) and the natural beauty of the course, which begins in Gilsum and winds down through sun-dappled, tree-lined back roads, out and back on the stunning Sury Mountain Dam, where you get a stunning view of the lake, and down into Keene to finish at Keene State College. Historic, rich in scenic beauty and runnable to boot? No wonder this is one of the state’s most iconic races.