Running every town in Rhode Island

Rhode Island is a really small state. It only has 39 towns. So, I've decided to run in all of them while I live here. So far, I have run in 21 of them. I am keeping track of my progress on this page.

This past weekend I ran in two new towns -- Middletown and Tiverton. I thought I would be running in Newport for the NewportFED Pie Run, but it turns out that the race is in Middletown. (Similarly, the previous weekend I did a race sponsored by the Westerly Track Club, which was in Charlestown rather than Westerly.) On Sunday, I was going to Little Compton anyway, so on the way we did a long run in the wonderfully-named Weetamoo Woods in Tiverton, RI.

Rhode Island has a lot of localities that aren't officially-recognized towns. For instance, the University of Rhode Island claims to be in Kingston, RI as its official university address. However, there is no Kingston -- there is a South Kingstown and a North Kingstown (note the addition of a "w"). Officially, URI is in South Kingstown.

Luckily, we just got a Rhode Island atlas with the town boundaries clearly delineated, so we can tell exactly which town a certain race route or run was in. For instance, the Red Rooster Ramble, which I ran 16 times in 2010, is generally known to be in Warren, RI. However, only the first and last mile of the course is actually in Warren; the middle three miles are in Barrington. And when I did my warm-up run, I ran to Bristol. Who knew?

One reasonable question might be, "what qualifies as running?" For instance, I visited Newport and I probably jogged a few steps across a road or something while I was there: does that count? No. For this definition, I'm inclined to adopt Dave Dunham's rule, which he used when he ran in every town in Massachusetts: It has to be part of a run of at least three miles. I have also decided that it's acceptable if it is part of a race warm-up or cool-down even if that part of the run is less than three miles.

Li'l Rhody Runaround

It has been far too long since I have posted, so I am going to start now, and try to catch up on race writeups and other posts I've been thinking about, before the end of the year. I'll start with today's race.

(Results) Today was the Li'l Rhody Runaround, an 8-mile trail race in Westerly, RI. I did it last year, but at a comfortable pace because I had the Alden Invite coming up a week later, where I wanted to run a fast mile. This year I was willing to run a little faster. I was planning to wear racing flats, but when I arrived at the race I learned that the woman who has dominated the race for the past few years was out of town, so I opted to wear trainers to be gentler on my calf, with which I've been having issues lately. I tied them a little tighter than usual so that they would feel more like racing flats and provide good traction on the rocky trail.

Everyone was required to wear at least 200 square inches of orange, because it is hunting season, so I went all-out and wore an orange NBB singlet (from last year), orange shorts (with orange tape over the logo) and orange gloves. I was one of the only people out of 300 runners wearing a singlet; most people had long sleeves and many had long pants. But it was about 40 degrees and sunny. If you're cold when it's 40 degrees and sunny, you're not running hard enough! That's what I tell myself.



The gun went off and we ran about 3/4 of a mile down a dirt road before entering the trail. Lots of men passed me during the road portion, and I made sure they didn't have ponytails. Once we got onto the single-track trail, I just held my position. Every so often a man would pass me; probably 10 men passed me over the course of the 6 miles of trail. Occasionally I passed the man ahead of me. The trail was well-marked with pink or yellow arrows, and quite dry. There were many boardwalks, each with "AMC 2001" or a similar year carved into them, and even a covered bridge with benches inside!

My biggest problems were rocks, roots and leaves (pretty typical for a trail race, I know). The trail was absolutely covered with dry leaves, pretty thickly, so often I would slip a bit, like a treadmill action. The roots were good for traction (because I could avoid the leaves), but somehow I found myself stepping on the roots with my toes while my heels were still on the ground, which jerked at my achilles tendons (bad when you are having calf issues already). I did this about five times in the first few miles, and thereafter figured out how to avoid it. The rocks were also good for traction, but it was challenging to figure out the best path over them and tiptoe delicately across them while maintaining a good pace. Sometimes I chose the wrong path over them and went further than necessary, and once I had to leap over a puddle at the last second. But as trail races go, this one was very tame; it was only gently rolling, with something that I would call a "hill" at about the 5 and 6 mile marks.

There were actually some hunters out there, so it was good we were wearing orange. I saw a guy up ahead with an orange vest on, so I assumed he was a race volunteer -- until I saw the long black rifle he was holding! I'm sure it would be difficult to find animals to shoot, when 300 people are running through the woods. Another time, I saw a guy in orange with a camera that had a huge lens on it, so again I thought he must be a race photographer -- but he wasn't taking pictures, so I guess he was just out there taking pictures of the animals.

I was able to work with the men around me; for the first half of the race I was in a long parade of orange men. As the race went on, the short road portions and the hills broke up the parade, and I had to actually look at the arrows marking the course, rather than just following the guy ahead! When we went on the short road portions, I expected to feel better than on the trail, but to my surprise I felt like I was working hard just to stay even, and I was happy when we ducked back into the woods again. (This may have been because it was windy on the road, and not in the woods.)

At about 7 miles we popped out of the woods for the mile-long road run to the finish. Given my negative experience with the road portion in the middle, I was pleasantly surprised that I felt great, and immediately pulled away from the guy who had been right behind me for the past few minutes. I passed two more guys on the road and felt nice and smooth all the way through the finish. They announced my name as I was nearing the end, and even held up a finish tape! Pretty nice for a trail race!

I ran back along the course to find my friend Sarah, and ran to the finish with her, then went on a little more cool down. The post-race refreshments were great, with hot soup, fixings for PB&Js, and cider. They gave some nice prizes, and even a plaque! Sarah placed in her age group, and Mica ran the farthest she has ever run! So we all went home happy.

Running on Deer Isle: Part III

This fall, a series of four essays is running in the Island Ad-Vantages, the local newspaper for Deer Isle and Stonington, ME. After each of my essays appears in the paper, I will also post it here.


When I decided to run every road on Deer Isle, I initially planned to skip all the private roads, because I didn't want to trespass onto private property. However, as soon as I started running the roads, I very quickly learned that if I skipped the roads marked "PVT," I'd miss 90 percent of Deer Isle. One of the reasons for running every road on Deer Isle was to really explore the island and see all of it, and to do that I had to run the private roads.

To respect property owners while still being true to my goal, I came up with a few simple rules. First, if there is a "No Trespassing" sign, I turn around at the sign. Similarly, if there is a rope or chain across the driveway, I turn around there. These rules result in some rather silly behavior: I run about four feet down a road, turn around at the rope, and run four feet back out, just so I can "count" the road as one I have done.

Additionally, if the road ends at a house, I turn around about 100 feet before I get to the house. However, it's often hard to tell whether the road ends. Several times, when the road curved around the back of the house, it looked like it kept going, so I ran down the road past the house, only to stop short when I realized the road ended in a parking spot. Other times, the road looked like it stopped at a house, so I turned around, only to inspect the satellite images later on the computer and find that the road did continue past the house. When that happened, I went back and ran the road again, this time all the way to the end.



To my surprise and continual delight, I have never had any trouble running on private roads. When I am running on a private road and a car comes by, I am always afraid they will stop and question me – but I smile and wave at them, and every time they just wave back and keep driving. (My theory is that on a private road with multiple houses, everyone just assumes that I'm someone else's crazy houseguest or renter.) I have run past people sitting on the porch in their pajamas, people mowing lawns, people out for a walk. I wave to them, and they wave back. When running on the main road, I wave to every car that passes, and usually the driver gives me a two-finger wave. Everyone is friendly.

One time, I was running on the French Camp Road, and I was doing a workout: 15 seconds sprinting and 30 seconds jogging, repeated over and over. I was afraid that someone would come home to find me absolutely tearing out of their driveway at full speed, and they would make the logical deduction that I had burglarized their house and was making a getaway. Luckily, I didn't see anyone the whole time I was running there.

I did get caught trespassing once, but it was my own fault for being lazy and not following my own rules. Most roads on Deer Isle, I have to run twice: once on the way in and once coming out. This particular day, my map showed that two roads connected in a "V" shape, so I could run in one road and out the other. However, when I ran down the first road, I found that it didn't quite connect to the second one, though I could see the second road through the trees. I didn't feel like running all the way out the way I had just came, and then running all the way down the other road just to end up at a place that I could see from where I was standing, so I quickly walked through 100 feet of woods and started jogging out the other road – and found myself on the wrong side of an 8-foot-tall metal gate!

The bad news: the landowner was in the woods gardening, and sternly informed me that I was on private property, and then listened unsympathetically to my explanation about my map. The good news: it had been pouring rain for an hour, and I was thoroughly soaked, so when the woman asked me where I came from and I told her Ron's Mobil (at this point about three miles away), she evidently decided that I was crazy and simply said "good luck." Even more good news: there was an eight-inch gap between the bottom of the gate and the road, so I was able to slide under it and get out of there.

So thanks, Deer Isle and Stonington, for sharing your roads with me and for allowing me to enjoy their beauty as you do.

Running on Deer Isle: Part II

This fall, a series of four essays is running in the Island Ad-Vantages, the local newspaper for Deer Isle and Stonington, ME. After each of my essays appears in the paper, I will also post it here.

About a year ago, I decided to run every road in Deer Isle, and now I've nearly finished my quest. If you see a road with a green or blue sign, I will have run down it. I've run hundreds of miles now on little dirt roads, on the crumbling pavement at the edge of Route 15, at the edge of the ocean and in the middle of the woods.

Over Christmas vacation, with snow on the ground and no vehicles driving to summer homes, animal tracks covered some roads. Deer, squirrels, rabbits, birds – sometimes all in the same area, running in circles and crisscrossing the road as though someone had sprinkled seeds on the snow. Surprisingly, I didn't see much actual wildlife (although one day I ran down a road where all the trees had faces). I saw a few deer, of course, standing on the road and then dashing away between the trees. On Christmas, I ran past a house with ducks on the roof and a horse in the yard. One day, I had been running for less than a minute when a movement on the side of the road startled me and I realized I had just run past a sheep! It wasn't tied up, but it clearly stood in the same place all day, right next to the road. "You'll never guess what I saw today!" I told my family afterwards, in a tone usually reserved for tourists who have spotted a moose.

According to my map, it is possible to get from the Reach Road to the dump, because Quaco Road goes all the way through. One day, I parked on the Sunshine Road, ran up Fish Creek Road, and took a left where indicated on the map. It was a dirt road, and then it was two ruts, and then two ruts with grass in the middle. Soon, puddles filled the ruts and I couldn't run more than a minute without stopping to tiptoe my way around the edge of the puddle, or pick my way through the middle on conveniently-placed rocks, or take a few steps and then make a flying leap across the whole thing and hope the dirt on the other side was solid. As the dump got closer, I started seeing all kinds of junk discarded in the woods. Half of a car from the 1940s, a refrigerator, an old mattress – all kinds of stuff that I didn’t know was back there.

On Lowe Road, I wasn't quite as fortunate. On my map, Lowe Road also goes through to the Reach Road. Once again, I parked my car on the Sunshine Road, and my boyfriend and I planned a long loop: up Route 15, across Lowe Road, down the Reach Road to the Sunshine Road and back to the car. However, as we ran along Lowe Road, we discovered that (like so many roads on the island), it ended at a house. No problem! We would find it: the old road, or puddle-filled ruts, or trail, which would take us to the Reach Road. We followed everything we could find, pushing through thorn bushes, wading through puddles, going east in an attempt to find the Reach Road. We ended up finding a long path through fields, which we followed east for half an hour or so until it ended in a clearing and we were completely lost. Eventually, we crossed some sort of fence and found a dirt road. But which way was out? I spotted a "Private Property" sign and reasoned that it had to be facing out, so we ran that way and found ourselves back on Route 15, popping out at Dexter Farm Road, which we had run past an hour before!


Me running down a typical private dirt road in Deer Isle

One day in the winter, I found myself running down a road that kept going and going, nearly a mile long with just one house at the end. This road was beautiful, sweeping past large boulders until it curved down along a natural beach, a private beach in a small cove, hard to see from out on the ocean and not marked on any maps. In fact, I found several such beaches on the island: small deposits of sand that couldn't be seen from the main road or from the bay, perhaps enjoyed by the same family for generations. At one beach, the sand extended out towards a small island, forming a natural sand bar. Beach chairs were wedged into the bank.

Late in the summer, I ran past a secret lily pond. Perhaps someone took flowers from Ames Pond, tied their roots to rocks, and tossed them in. Another day, I ran down a road which (as usual) ended at a house, but in this case the house was surrounded by cars, cars from every decade, and trucks, and tractors, more than 50 of them in all, cars that should have been in the parade and cars up on blocks.

And the dogs! Big dogs barking and jumping behind tall fences, tiny little dogs yipping from enclosed screen porches, loose dogs that come out into the road and chase me, growling. Once, a man happened to drive by at just as a loose dog was coming for me. He slowed down, rolled down his window, called the dog by name and told it to leave me alone. Thanks to this kind man, whomever he is, I was able to pass the house and keep running. Thank you!