“Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from the neighborhood

Hop a flight to Miami Beach, or to Hollywood” – Billy Joel (“New York State of Mind”).

If you are over 50, you should be able to easily keep the song melody in your head. Insert these lines next.

“But I’m taking the back roads, through New Hampshire’s countryside

I’m in a running state of mind” – Dave McMullen.

I grew up in a small town on the north shore of Long Island, N.Y., just a few towns east of where Billy Joel grew up (Oyster Bay). I never met him, never went to any of his concerts, but his music was a big part of the soundtrack from my teen years. This was a time when I first fell in love with running, especially during the summers. Just lace up my shoes, get out there and run wherever my mind and body took me. 

I read Jim Fixx’s “Complete Book of Running,” followed the successes of Bill Rogers and Frank Shorter and found that running made me feel alive.

I got swept up in the running and tennis booms of the 1970s with millions of other Americans. Running was my escape, my therapy, my meditation, my outlet, and I poured myself into it. I entered my first marathon, the Long Island Marathon, and was hooked to run long distances.

As we age, and in most everything we do, one of our challenges is to avoid falling into ruts and losing the spark of why we do what we do. How do we keep it fresh and alive over a long period of time?

When it comes to running, more often than not we finish where we start and see the same terrain over and over again. If you’ve lived somewhere for any length of time it can get monotonous (maybe not as much as a treadmill) and wear you down. We’re all different, as some of us get comfort from the sameness – same route to work, same coffee stop, same routine. From a running perspective, that's just not me.  

Nancy and I raised our family over a 30-year period in Hampstead. We loved our time there, but I have to admit running the same roads over and over with ever-increasing traffic became more a chore than a joy. My body was breaking down and it was harder and harder to get the spark to get out the door.

Back in October of 2023, I submitted an article to the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript about how we moved to Dublin, and while traveling through Cheshire County I’d asked the question, “How many towns are there in New Hampshire, and is it possible to connect them all by running from town hall to town hall?” It became my Quotidian challenge and obsession (with Nancy’s full support) that we embarked on back in November of 2021 with the first run of Dublin to Jaffrey.

To date, I’ve connected 88 town halls (out of 234), run 675 miles (out of 1,800), encountered 50,000 feet of elevation climb and logged 118 hours of running in addition to over 3,000 miles driving back and forth. Chef, our rescue yellow lab, comes along and usually gets in a mile or two. I’ve set up the continuous running circuit to navigate through each of New Hampshire’s 10 counties one by one. Cheshire, Sullivan and Merrimack are in the history books, and we’re now midway through Grafton County.

This past winter, we made our way north through the Connecticut River Valley and headed south in the spring toward Dorchester, where we are now. With a few more southern Grafton County towns ahead, we’ll be heading back north where the goal is to break through to Coos County by year end.  

The overall target is to finish leg 234 back at Dublin Town Hall (where we started) by June of 2029. But as a marathoner, I’ve learned you need to break things into chunks and not get ahead of yourself, thus my current mantra of “Bethlehem by Christmas.” The spark is still there, and we're enjoying the adventure of seeing places we've never been before throughout the state.

“It comes down to reality, and it’s fine with me ‘cause I’ve let it slide

I don’t care if it’s Chinatown or on Riverside” – Billy Joel.

“I can’t say when I’ll get there, I just know I’m going to try

I’m in a running state of mind” – Dave McMullen.

I will keep you all updated with progress and my New Hampshire running state of mind from time to time in the future. I do maintain a website (runnh234.us) and post Instagram updates for each run (runnh234) for those of you interested in following along more closely.  

Until next time, I hope you find the spark to keep moving!