Old Forge Marathon Adventures with the Martins

By John Martin (vtiron55@yahoo.com)

There are times when you need to go out of your comfort zone just to spice up the same old same old. If you need to spice things up, this multiday race is a cure for the mundane. The village of Old Forge is nestled in Adirondack Park and is home to about 500 year-round residents. The tourists and wildlife give Old Forge a larger feeling. There are A LOT of deer, and many seem to be lawn ornaments staying close to people’s houses in town but are also along the road and so it’s good to be watching for them. Lots of boats, camps, bars, restaurants and souvenir shops line the main street. It’s a tourist destination, but unlike Lake Placid, there is no easy way to get here from Vermont.

Race Headquarters is in the Rec Center, a new and spacious venue that nicely accommodates registration as well as start and finish activities. As for the races, make your choices; 5k’s, 10k’s, half marathon, marathon, 50k and a kayak triathlon. All the events start and finish at the Rec center.

The first and last mile of each race is paved and goes up over a nice hill, the rest of the courses are all on parts of the 500-mile system of snowmobile trails with a mix of gravel, sand and rock surface. The courses are well marked and wind through deciduous forest by rivers and backwaters. Other than water stops and chipmunks, there’s not much for cheering crowds.



Dot and I signed up for the Thursday 5K opener, The Friday morning 10K, the Friday afternoon 10K and the Saturday morning 5K. I called this the “ADK 5 and Dime x2,” four races in 39 hours (about 3 days). More intrepid types ran various combinations of a half marathon, marathon or the 50K.

Knowing that the back-to-back 10K’s on Friday would be our stiffest challenge, we trained specifically for two runs in the same 8 hours on Tuesdays. We would typically run 5-6 miles in the morning and 4-5 in the afternoon at Fun Run. It soon became clear that our Fun Run pace was consistently faster than our morning pace. Our race results for the 10k reflected the training. I was 2 minutes faster on the second 10K and Dot was only seconds off her morning pace.

Saturday had me on tired legs running 2 minutes slower than Thursday’s effort. Dot on the other hand ran faster.

So how did we do? I had three age group first place finishes and a fourth on the last 5K. Dot had an age group second place finish, and three age group firsts. Additionally, Dot was the top female master (40+) at one race (the morning 10K) and the top super master 60 plus at the last (5K). We also got a truckload of T-shirts, jackets, race medals and award memorabilia to further add to the clutter.


The swag haul from their race weekend!

Old Forge is spectacular, located on old Forge Pond at the bottom of the Fulton chain of lakes, a chain of 8 lakes formed by the damming of the Moose River 1798 and other smaller dams and channels along the chain. Old Forge is also home to the 90-mile Adirondack Canoe Classic and McCauley Mountain which produced 3 Olympic skiers.


Dot’s old haunt on Maple Ridge

Old Forge was particularly special for Dot as she grew up in Old Forge. She graduated from high school there in a class of 29 students. She recounted riding her horse to school and galloping him on the 1-mile-long grassy airstrip at the airport out near our race site. The ski hill (Maple Ridge) which was where kids would go every Friday afternoon after early dismissal to learn to ski, before hitting the bigger McCauley Mountain. There was also the town beach where she lifeguarded and the Strand movie theater where she worked as the popcorn girl the summer Jaws came out for 2 showings for 2 weeks, No one got up during THAT movie to get popcorn so she watched it 28+- times. So being the 50th anniversary of the movie we bought our tickets and popcorn and celebrated the anniversary! No wonder she doesn’t like to swim in the ocean.

Next up, think cowboy hats and spurs. We are headed West.

— John Martin