Trying the Triathlon

The clouds that had been drifting across Cannon Mountain all morning started dripping rain as I stood near the summit, peering downhill into the fog. I was amid a throng of spectators at the finish line of the 25^th Top Notch Triathlon, ringing cowbells and shouting encouragement to tired racers as they pushed through the last steps of the climb.

The weather this year, organizer Kim Cowles told me, was the worst it’s ever been for the Top Notch. A stiff headwind met racers as they set off on bikes from downtown Franconia. The same wind whipped whitecaps across the surface of Echo Lake as swimmers stroked their way through the chilly water. Now the high-elevation rain showers were threatening to evolve into a full-fledged downpour.

Somewhere out there on that foggy mountain was my 10-year-old son.

After managing the top water station last year with me and his sisters, and watching several familiar faces – including a couple of schoolmates – come through, Owen asked if he could put a team together for this year’s race. His buddies – and their parents – were game, and Team McCloughton was born.

Weeks before the race, Owen asked, “Do you think we’ll win?” I knew there were likely to be tough teams and older kids who had done the race before, so my response was, “Absolutely not.”

We discussed how it’s not about winning, but about challenging yourself, having something to train toward, and tackling the challenge despite knowing you probably won’t end the day victorious. Plus, the Top Notch Triathlon is a special sort of event, filled with community and competition encompassing everyone from hardcore athletes to local families to weekend warriors out for a Saturday adventure.

(My past Top Notch stories: Surrounded by Men in Spandex, Making it to the Top, and Top Notch.)

The boys, with a combined race day age of 29, were certainly among the youngest participants. The triathlon brought them each a bit outside of their comfort zones, but despite a few pre-race jitters, they were excited to get out there Saturday morning with a few hundred other Top Notch-ers.

Wyatt smiled and waved as he pedaled out from the start toward a gnarly, nearly all uphill bike course he’d never seen before. He powered up Butter Hill and through the wooded part of the route, over rocks and through muddy ruts to Echo Lake. At the handoff, Jackson dove into the chilly, wind-churned water while storm clouds brewed overhead. Part way across the lake he turned to his mom, who was swimming with him for moral support, and declared he wanted to do this again next year.

I had assumed Owen would want me to hike with him on the last leg. He’s hiked big mountains before, including the other side of Cannon earlier this summer, but never in race mode and always with me. But he insisted he wanted to hike solo, wanted me to be at the finish line when he got there.

So I gave him a cheer and headed to the tram, which would carry us to that finish line, with the McCloughton contingent of parents and siblings and grandparents. “You know you’re raising mountain kids when you’re OK with your 10-year-old climbing a 4,000-footer on his own, in the rain,” one of the other parents remarked as we rode into the clouds and toward the summit a few minutes later.

But I knew Owen wasn’t on his own, not really. His aunt was in the race and on the mountain somewhere ahead of him. Along the way he passed his school principal, who was participating in his 20^th Top Notch Triathlon, and the local police chief. A couple of older schoolmates went by. His uncle was there as a member of the town’s EMS squad. People – strangers, mostly – shouted encouragement from the open windows of the tramcar as it passed overhead, near the top of that long climb.

There is nothing lonely about this community-centric event – except the utter physical effort it takes to complete. I’ve participated in the Top Notch before, and I’ve made that race day climb three times. I know there is a buoying jolt of adrenaline at the bottom, where cheers provide a mental boost. But most of the hike is a leg-burning, lung-squeezing, cheer-less slog.

As I stood at the top of Cannon Saturday peering through the dripping fog for the familiar pattern of Owen’s favorite soccer shirt, I wondered how he was faring out there in the clouds, what was going through his mind, where he was on the mountain. And then, there he was, striding on tired legs toward the summit. Even through the mist I could see he was smiling.

It was a tired smile, but a proud one, too: the smile of a kid who’d just climbed a mountain, in the rain, on his own, and made it across the first big race finish line of his life. It was a smile matched by his teammates’ grins as they met him there, each one done with his own leg of a team effort.

Winning was far from the boys’ minds as they sat in the tram station, out of the downpour that had intensified seconds after Owen crossed the finish. Any pre-race jitters were long gone as they basked in that feeling of accomplishment, a mixture of thank-goodness-that’s-over and we-did-it!

A couple hours later we learned Team McCloughton – a combination of the boys’ last names – was the only youth team to complete the triathlon this year, and they had won the category. They’d already had a topnotch day; the medals were just icing on the triathlon cake.

Now they’re hooked, ready to do it all again next year. If they do, my son might ask again if I think they’ll win. Probably not. But it’s not about winning. It’s about making it through the woods, across the lake, and up the mountain – on your own, with a little help from your friends.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the August 11, 2017 issue of the Littleton Record.

Top Notch

If you ever need to feel appreciated, volunteer to work the last water station on the last leg of a mountain triathlon. That’s what the kids and I did Saturday, spending the morning about two-thirds of the way up Cannon Mountain, just below the final, grueling climb of the Top Notch Triathlon. By the greetings we received from many racers, you would have thought we were handing out rare treasure rather than small paper cups of cool water.

Ready and waiting for thirsty racers.

When I mentioned the idea of volunteering for the Top Notch – locally known simply as “The Triathlon” – the kids were immediately eager. The Triathlon is more than a challenging athletic contest; it is a community gathering, a day where friends and neighbors come together to support an event that benefits the local recreation department. My kids cheered me on as I completed the final leg of the race four years ago, and after volunteering last weekend, they’ve caught the Triathlon bug.

Now in its third decade, the Triathlon attracts racers from local towns and as far away as Alaska. We saw serious, hard core competitors on the mountain last weekend, as well as youngsters accompanied by parents, the local elementary school principal, and the town’s police chief. The results show competitors ranging in age from 11 to 77, and finish times from just over an hour to well over three.

Our Triathlon day started with an early morning ride up the Cannon Mountain Tramway, with the kids remarking several times how strange it seemed to be on the Tram during the summer, rather than when the mountains are blanketed with snow and we are dressed in ski boots and warm layers. With us in the tram car was Jean McKenna, who has served for the past several years as the official finish line greeter on Triathlon day.

Bubbly and welcoming (even first thing in the morning), Jean spends hours handing out bottles of water and words of encouragement for those last few yards of the race. Even when you think your legs will give out and your lungs burst with the effort of making it to the top of the mountain and across the finish, you keep going, if for no other reason than Jean says you can. She ran the race for 13 years before retiring to her finish line post, and there’s no better person for the job.

Saturday morning, we left Jean to her task and hiked to our station, descending a trail the kids had only ever skied. We all agreed the pitch seems steeper when you’re wearing sneakers and walking through wildflowers than when there are skis strapped to your feet and the downward schuss is effortless.

We spotted the first competitor about an hour after the race started, and a few more speedy racers passed within the next few minutes. Some of these took water without slowing their pace, steady and strong. Soon enough there was a stream of climbers, and gradually the intensity of the racers lessened. There were more smiles, pauses to drink the water or refill bottles, brief snippets of conversation. Many racers thanked us for being there. Several made joyful, though tired, exclamations upon seeing us over the rise. Some asked how much further there was to go, and we told them to listen for the cheers from the finish line, which I know inspire tired legs to keep trucking on that final steep stretch.

Several friends passed our station in the crowded middle of the pack, some doing the Triathlon for the first time, others annual repeaters. Many racers were sporting shirts from past Top Notch Triathlons, indicating they’d been here before. One man near the end told us he’ll turn 70 next year. He’s done the race as part of the team in past years, but this year was competing as an individual. He wants to do the same next year, figuring if he simply finishes, he’ll be in the top three of the 70-plus category.

I’m not sure my children realized the uniqueness of an event that encompasses the community, not sure they see the value in living in a place where kids not much older than they are willingly push themselves through the course, or where their school principal climbs mountains, or where the chief of police comes smiling through, well ahead of the sergeant, who pauses to catch his breath and tell us that completing the Triathlon is a goal he’s wanted to accomplish for three years.

Long before the last racers came through, though, the kids asked if we could repeat the experience next year, participate in the day once again as volunteers. But they’re also talking with each other and with friends about putting together Triathlon teams someday, joining the cadre of bikers, swimmers, and mountain climbers toiling through the natural playground in our backyard.

Maybe they don’t yet realize how lucky they are to be growing up here, but they know Triathlon Day is special.  

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her Blog: Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the August 12, 2016 edition of the Littleton Record.

Making it to the top

Before last weekend, the last time I’d climbed to the top of Cannon Mountain without the aid of a chairlift, a mid-winter moon was rising over the broad, rocky shoulder of Mt. Lafayette, and I had snowshoes strapped to my feet. That quiet evening I was rewarded for my toil with a proposal, a sparkly ring, and a cold beer at the summit.

Almost there!

The scene on the hill last Saturday was markedly different, as I joined a line of sweating, gasping people winding up Cannon Mountain during the final leg of the 20^th Annual Top Notch Triathlon. This was my third Top Notch experience, my first coming as an “Ironwoman” 17 years ago, and my second when I ran the race as part of a relay team a decade ago.

My team this year included biker extraordinaire Martha Wilson, who pedaled a great opening leg, passing other riders on the road and in the woods, and all-around athletic superstar Melanie Harkless, who pounded through the swim across chilly Echo Lake and sent me on my way up the mountain with a shout of “Go! Go!” (Mel and I first met at race registration Saturday morning, and I learned after the race that she had previously won the Top Notch as an Ironwoman and held the course record for six years. I know how to pick a good team!)

My goal heading into the triathlon was to finish the climb in less time than it had taken me during my last Top Notch experience, 10 years and many life changes ago. I came within a minute of that goal, barely missing. Thanks to my super-fast teammates, our team finished first in the women’s relay team division, and 9^th out of 76 teams.

Over two decades, the TopNotch Triathlon has grown from a relatively small event to one that this year included 261 individual finishers and 76 relay teams, with racers arriving from throughout New England and as far afield as California, Alaska, and Switzerland.

Racers range from serious athletes to casual participants out for a good time, and the roster always includes plenty of locals in each of those categories. The race now even draws the occasional professional triathlete. Despite its growing popularity, the Triathlon remains a community affair, with a neighborly friendliness that stretches from morning registration through the finish high above Franconia Notch, some 10 miles and 3,320 feet in elevation gain later

Besides offering a fun challenge, the Top Notch is also run for a good cause. Proceeds from the event – more than $6,000 annually – go to the Lafayette Recreation Department, where the funds are used as seed money for projects like improving the playground and playing fields at the Dow Strip, installing a gazebo there, and creating new basketball and tennis courts in Franconia.

Milling around the start area before the race, I found a slew of familiar faces – friends, neighbors, kids I used to coach, parents of kids I used to coach, my children’s babysitter. They were all there to cheer someone on, to run the triathlon, or as race volunteers helping register competitors and direct traffic.

Among the crowd, of course, were the Cowles family: Tim and Kim who founded the Top Notch Triathlon back in 1992 and continue to orchestrate the event, and their kids Anne and Tucker.

Once Tim had started three waves of racers Saturday morning, he headed up to oversee the finish. After seeing to endless course set up and registration details, Kim, Anne and Tucker jumped on their bikes and ran the race.

As Top Notchers toiled up Cannon’s slopes Saturday, the mood on the hill remained convivial. Folks being passed on the mountain offered words of encouragement to other racers, even as they gasped for breath. One racer commiserated with a woman just ahead of me who was bleeding from bad scrapes on her thigh and shoulder incurred during the bike leg. A guy near the top gave me a wheezy pep talk as he surged slowly past.

I heard the crowd at the finish before I could see it, as I turned onto the Tramway trail and the final steep stretch. In that crowd were my teammates and my three young children, whose cheers of “Go, Mama, go!” were swallowed by the general shouts of encouragement. As I crossed the finish line, I was greeted by Jean McKenna, one of the friendliest faces around – and one of more than 60 race volunteers who helped orchestrate every Top Notch detail.

At the end of the climb this time around, my reward was high fives from my family, and joining a community of friends and neighbors in celebrating 20 years of a great event. I caught my breath and joined the crowd, which included a growing number of racers, to cheer others through the end. Buoyed by the cheers, as I had been, nearly every racer found a last burst of energy to run through the finish, breathless and smiling all at once.

This essay is also published in this week’s edition of the Record-Littleton. 

Ready to Run

“You are a goddess!” Those are the words embroidered on the inside of my favorite running skirt. Yes, sometimes I run in a skirt. It’s a skort, actually – that fantastic combination of shorts and skirt that has made many a woman feel like a goddess. And it’s what I’ll suit up in Saturday, as I prepare to scramble the height of Cannon Mountain during the 20^th annual Top Notch Triathlon.

As triathlons go, this one is a little bit inside out: racers start with a bike ride that traverses pavement and forest trails en route from downtown Franconia to Echo Lake at the top of Franconia Notch, proceed to a chilly swim across the lake, then scramble up the ski trails of Cannon Mountain. (The traditional triathlon format is swim-cycle-run.) From start to finish, the triathletes will travel a distance of roughly 10 miles – a mere smidgen compared to, say, the 140 miles covered in an Ironman event. In that distance, however, Top Notchers gain a total of 3,320 vertical feet, 2,280 feet in elevation gain in the run alone.

The run alone is what I will do as part of a Top Notch relay team Saturday morning. Many years ago, I completed the entire race as an “iron woman.” I last participated in the Top Notch 10 years ago, before I had three kids, when I was pretty fit and nimble and still in my 20s. At least I thought I was fit then, but climbing the mountain suggested otherwise, as men in spandex passed me left and right on my way to the summit. To say I “ran” up the mountain would be, well, a blatant lie. But I made it, and my team did just fine.

This year, with my mountain and road bikes collecting another layer of dust in the garage (sigh), I’ve taken to lacing up my sneakers in the wee hours of the morning or the rare afternoon I am child-free and running the roads and trails around home.

I’ve been an on-again-off-again jogger since high school, when I would run the mile-and-a-half loop near my house a few times a week between soccer season and track season. In college, I kept up my routine of jogging a mile or two here or there as part of my effort stay in shape for soccer. Eventually, these short runs were replaced by long bike rides on Colorado single track and cross-country ski treks in the mountains.

When I moved back East nearly a dozen years ago, I discovered the challenge and thrill of road biking, then the challenge and thrill of child rearing, which is a workout in itself, but of an entirely different type.

Running fits most easily, for me, into the family scene, and so it has become my workout of choice. I’ve upped the miles of my regular running routes, and running has become something I look forward to, when years ago it was more of a chore. I like pounding the pavement – and even better is running the trails through the woods. I time myself now, striving to go a little faster each run, and I’ve shaved a minute or two (depending on the length of the run) off my mile time.

When I run, my mind settles. Sometimes I actually go for a run just to calm my thoughts. Often I come up with a story idea, or work through a writing challenge I’ve struggled with, while I’m outside, running. I don’t listen to music, preferring the natural sounds around me – be they birdsong or the engine rev of the speedy Subaru with Vermont plates that delivers the paper along one of my routes. I’ve seen moose on my runs, spooked deer and ruffed grouse, and last week came nearly face-to-face with a black bear.

I am no marathoner, but running makes me feel good, strong. Maybe not quite like a goddess, but close enough.

For the past few years I’ve told myself I should do the triathlon again, start to finish. Alas, my swimming is relegated to the odd stroke in the pool as I splash around with the kids, and I’ve just told you about the bikes.

So, I mentioned the idea of putting a team together to an acquaintance who enjoys competing in the wild and wacky sport of cyclocross. She thought it would be good training for her participation in the 24 Hours of Great Glen bike race the following weekend and recruited a friend for the swim. In a matter of a couple of days, we had a team and were registered to race.

On Saturday we’ll join a few hundred other racers, a fun combination of serious athletes, many folks just out for a good time, and a bunch like me – looking for a physical and competitive challenge with a good dose of fun thrown in.

The Top Notch started off as a purely local event two decades ago and now includes competitors from throughout New England and as far afield as Colorado, California, and Florida. There are still plenty of local racers, of course, and many of them often place near or at the top of the score sheet.

I don’t know where our team will land in the standings. I’m hoping to get to the top faster than I did a decade ago, but I don’t know how realistic that is. I do know that, whatever happens, at the end of the day, the inside of my skirt will still say, “You are a goddess.” And that’s pretty good encouragement.

Top Notch Triathlon: surrounded by men in spandex

In honor of Saturday's running of the 19th annual Top Notch Triathlon, I'm posting an article I wrote for the Courier back in 2002 (or 2003?) about my own second Top Notch experience. I believe the headline with this front page gem was: Surrounded by Men in Spandex, Our Reporter Makes it to the Top.



That's me on the left, during my so-far-only Iron
woman attempt, circa 1995. And that's Trevor
Hamilton next to me.

 We came up with the inane idea in February, during a late night discussion, after a consuming a few beers. Summer seemed distant then, a world away.
The three of us would be training partners for the Top Notch Triathlon, six months down the road. We'd have weekly training sessions.  We'd ride our bikes hard, swim in Echo Lake's icy waters, practice scrambling quickly up mountains.
I'd finished the "Race to the Face" as an Iron woman once during my college years.  My mother has a picture of me at the finish that day. I look only slightly tired and out of breath.  I look happy. It would be fun.
By the time July hit, we'd conceded to compete as a team. Carrie couldn't get the day off from managing the Echo Lake Park, but she could do the swim. Nicole hadn't recovered completely from a winter knee injury, but she could do the mountain bike portion. 
That left me with the questionable honor of running the final leg, a 2.5-mile jaunt up Cannon Mountain. I felt relatively fit from riding my new road bike all summer. I hadn't done much hiking or been running in months, but I figured, "What the heck, it's only two and a half miles."
Well, about a third of the way up the mountain last Saturday, I wondered what on earth had inspired me to put myself through this ordeal.
It was hot. It was steep. I was surrounded by men in spandex, and they were passing me left and right.
My legs ached. My lungs burned. I though surely I would finish last, or collapse somewhere along the way.
I've spent a lot of time on Cannon Mountain. I like it a lot better when it's covered in snow and I've got skis strapped to my feet.
Most of the way I was in a pack of competitors strung along in a winding, panting queue creeping up the mountain's ski trails. When we reached the Tramway trail, folks passing overhead shouted encouragement from the open windows of the tramcars.  I was extremely envious of their free ride.
As I finally approached the finish, I spotted my teammate Nicole waiting for me.  She had finished her biking leg nearly an hour earlier, had gone for a swim to cool off, changed clothes.  She looked refreshed.  She cheered me on, and I actually found the strength to run through the finish.
All I wanted to do was sit down in a shady spot, drink some water, catch the breath I'd lost 40 minutes ago. As I came through the finish my friend Tim, the race director, yelled encouragement. I figured that whatever I'd been through in the last 40 minutes was pretty miniscule considering the cancer treatments he'd endured all winter and into spring. I was glad to see him there cheering us on.
A few minutes later, as we looked out at the blue sky surrounding the magnificent mountain named Lafayette, Nicole said, "Wow, that was really fun."
Fun? Well, I guess after the fact, yeah, it was fun in some strange, competitive sense. And we managed to finish second out of the women's teams.
We're already discussing our strategy for next year's race.
The team who beat us was the "Go girls."  We figure next year we'll train a little harder. I may actually go for a few trail runs or hikes before the race. We're thinking about calling ourselves the "Go faster girls."