Chocorua Mountain Race
Tamworth, NH
June 7th, 2025- 8:10 AM
14 Miles/4,700' Elevation
Next up in June was the Chocorua Mountain Race. Unlike Sunapee and Catamount, this was a very difficult course with steep, technical terrain throughout. More like Breakneck, but actually a decent amount harder. It didn't help that it not only poured the previous day, but rained steadily throughout the second half of the race.
I can't remember specific expectations for this one. I think I wanted to run under 3 hours and probably closer to 2:45-2:50 range. Place wise, there were probably enough competitive runners here that a win or top 3 would be difficult, but top 5 or top 10 seemed like a reasonable expectation. I had wanted to do this race for a while and it fit in well this year.
The parking was a little rough for this one, with just parking on a rough grass field that was very wet. Mosquitoes were horrendous at the race site too. There a few required gear items for this and you actually had to show them all. Went for an OAB warm-up on dirt roads and paved roads. Good to get there early as there was quite a bit of traffic coming in in the final half hours. Port-a-potties were quite inadequate for the number of participants, and they delayed the race start 10 minutes.
Like Sunapee this race would have two major climbs followed by descents. First one was about 1,800' climb over 3 miles then a 1600' drop over 2.5 miles. The second round was 2,500' climb to the summit of Chocorua (4.5 mile climb) and 2,800' drop (4 miles).
There was about a quarter mile of flat/wide path before turning onto singletrack, and people went out hard. I lined up too far back for a race that condenses onto singletrack quickly and had to make some moves to make sure I wasn't too far back when we hit the trails. The first mile felt a bit aggressive, then it got substantially steeper and people were hiking stuff I'd probably prefer to run, so it felt a lot more relaxed. The singletrack wasn't too tight and I slowly moved up maybe 5 places or so, before settling behind some other runners. I found myself behind a BAA runner who seemed more comfortable running than hiking, so I stuck with him and one other guy. Mile 1 was decently quick in a 9:39, but mile 2 had over 1,000' of elevation gain. I found myself in that awkward scenario- running felt better than hiking, but people in front of me were hiking. Do I try to pass, or since it's early just hike with them? I opted for latter as I have been recently but I'm not convinced that's the right decision. I noticed two things- I was way more comfortable running than those guys were, and my hiking speed was slower than theirs. So they'd gap me slightly when hiking then I'd jog and catch up immediately. I remember being disappointed with an 18 minute mile 2, but this was actually a sub-8 GAP given all the elevation gain. This mile felt pretty comfortable, maybe because I hiked a lot when I felt okay running. Towards the end of the third mile, it got much more technical with some wet rock slabs, mud and big puddles. Those guys dropped me a little, then the first climb finished and we turned left to descend abruptly.
This descent was pretty technical with lots of thick, chunky rock and sometimes loose rock but no super big stuff. I felt like I was moving decent, but I was getting passed by 1 runner every minute. These guys had to be going 2 mins/mile faster than me. I passed the BAA guy from before after a mile, who was the only runner I could match on the downhills. It got quite a bit more runnable and less technical for the 2nd mile of downhill and I wasn't getting passed as much. 10 minutes for the first mile, then 8:30 pace for the next 1.5. I clearly took too long at the aid station, as BAA guy arrived after me yet left earlier. In fact, I may have lost 2-3 places at the aid station alone. We had a half mile of flat dirt road, and I opted just to jog this section, let guys gap me and go pee.
Having the gpx on my watch was great for this, as the course was not well marked. They opted to tie orange ribbons around trees, but it wasn't a bright fluorescent orange and was often quite hard to see. Having the gpx there was very helpful. My watch also showed the distance and elevation gain to each aid station, which was also quite helpful. We turned back onto singletrack, and one of the guys ahead of me missed the turn entirely and another runner yelled at him to turn right. The grade at first on the singletrack was gentle, but it was still pretty technical including some legit stream crossings. I kept the next runner in my sights, but it took me a full mile to pass him. I had some significant stomach discomfort and was gagging/nearly throwing up but managed to keep it together. It passed and I was able to catch the next runner. Weirdly, a runner one spot up ran downhill backwards towards us and asked if we were on course. I could easily verify that on my watch and told him we were fine. The runnable terrain ended quickly and things got pretty steep and technical. Our group split up after a while and I was in no man's land. Towards the top of the climb, there was lots of steep wet rock slab. I slid back on this stuff and often had to use my hands to carefully move forward. This was a serious concern for the downhills later on. When we neared the top of treeline, I noticed the top woman was gaining on me quick. Surprisngly, I held her off until the summit as it got a bit more runnable. It was a little hard to follow the trail to the summit. I tagged the summit just before her and they were scanning our bibs. I decided to pause to let her go ahead, and she'd almost certainly be better on these downhills but for whatever reason her bib scan wasn't working. I got slightly ahead before moving aside.
As expected, these steep rock slabs were absolutely treacherous. I took my sweet time for the next mile to avoid injury, getting passed by a few. There were a couple turns that were kind of unclear, so again having gpx helped. Another runner was confused and I was able to verify the correct trail again. We got back into the woods, but there was still plenty of rock slab so I wasn't moving well. The second woman passed me easily, then things got more runnable. I felt pretty weak to the finish and was passed a few more times although I did repass the BAA guy again. Came in at an uninspiring 19th place in 3:05:58.
I wasn't super happy with that race. Honestly my first uphill, downhill, and second uphill were all solid. But none of them were great, and my final downhill was quite bad just not having the confidence in traction and foot placement. I might have been in 12th or 13th place at the summit but lost a lot of places there. And even my solid 1st downhill I still probably went from 9th to 15th place or something like that.
This was always meant to be more a train through kind of race, but it was still a bit disappointing as I always like to run at my best, and this definitely wasn't my best. A couple of notes/interesting points:
-Despite hitting the summit at the same time as the top woman, she beat to me to the finish by 8 minutes! Clearly technical descending is a strong point for her, but it also highlights a major weakness for me.
-I was only 9th minutes off 10th place, so clearly with some tweaks I can contend for a top 10 at a technical mountain race like this. However, a top 3 is totally out of the question for now (about 27 minutes back).
-This course is a beast. Even if I matched the winner's time (2:30), racing for 2.5 hours on wet, technical and steep terrain is quite hard to manage. That's an exhausting, tough effort and managing fatigue is crucial. Breakneck was very hard, but this was like another level- 2.5K elevation climbs instead of 1K at breakneck, much bigger rocks and rock slabs than breakneck which was more small, chunky rocks, and just ultra slippery spots.
-Gear was a massive limitation today. Not all of my performance weakness falls on not being as good on technical stuff as others- most people ahead of me likely had much better grip. Hammering the downhill rock slab could have led to serious injury. I'm probably taking 3-5 minutes off alone with the right shoes. Clearly the Salomon Speedcross' aren't great on this kind of terrain.
-Outside of gear, I think the two biggest improvements are technical downhills and managing the uphills a bit better. I need to run more and pass more rather than just deferring to others hiking because it's the easy thing to do. As for the downhills, I just need more practice to gain confidence. That said, it would be very hard to be competitive downhills in a race like this- most of these runners are technical specialists and not road runners like me. I do think I could get around a 2:55 with the right improvement and better pacing. That said, just getting absolutely smoked this time doesn't really make me want to sign up for another race like this.
Really good post-race food. I got a massive crepe filled with warm chocolate and whipped cream. It was kind of a disappointing experience for me, but at least I finally got to do this race.
