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.

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.