There's a special feeling that you get by running as hard as you can, for as long as you can, and then running several miles more.

Milling around the finish area of the Northern Nipmuck Trail Race Saturday, trying in vain to walk off the lactic acid that was turning my quads to cement, I found myself giddy and grinning, and I laughed out loud. After running for three hours, up and down hills, over dirt, rocks, mud, logs and ice, it felt just wonderful to stop. I was elated. It's a rose and thorn kind of thing. You have to suffer to feel that good.
Northern Nipmuck was, for me, 12 miles of joy, and four miles of suffering a running battle between my brain and my legs. Brain wanted to gut it out, and finish as strong as possible. Easy for him to think; he's just along for the ride. My legs, who'd been doing all the heavy lifting, felt strongly that a few miles walk would be just the thing to cap off a nice run. They were pretty well fed up, by the end, with brain telling them that they were almost there.
The race covered eight miles on the Nipmuck Trail, starting at Bigelow Hollow State Park off Route 171 in Union, Conn., a short hop over the Mass. state line. It was gorgous countryside; I'll have to go back and see it sometime. I do recall a long ridge, where one turn in the trail appeared to lead off a cliff.
The course was almost entirely single-track hiking trail. As advertised, there were no "monster" hills. On the other hand, there were very few flat stretches, either, and some of those hills could grow up to be monsters if you run up and down  them often enough. The race got off to a slow start for those of us back down the line, as the course turned onto single-file trail and started a climb almost immediately. It took a mile or two for people to sort themselves out by pace.
The course description claims a total of 3,200 feet elevation gain and loss, and my quads and I don't doubt it. The Nipmuck Marathon, in June, covers different sections of the same trail. My friend Michelle says the terrain is much the same, with the addition of a mile-long climb on a paved road. That one's going to be tough.

Northern Nipmuck is an out-and-back course, so we knew that every climb would be a descent, and vice versa. There were some really fun parts, like the stream crossings on rocks and logs; the ankle-sucking mud near the start and finish; steep, rocky inclines, often with a brook at the bottom; and my favorite, the glacial remnant in a boggy hollow, with a little crevasse in the middle.
I finished just seconds under 3 hours, thanks mainly to the bloke just behind me, who announced somewhere near the end that we had six more minutes to finish if we wanted to crack three hours. That lit my legs up.
The first-place finisher (Dmitry Drozdov, of Waltham, Mass.) brought it home in 2:01, a full ten minutes ahead of the next guy! He was flying, and he looked focused but totally at ease.

Race results are up on the WMAC site; apparently there were only 112 runners (who finished, at least).

Some of the faster finishers stayed on to cheer us slower folk at the finish, and volunteers served up some really fine pizza and hot turkey stew back at the state park. The fire was an especially welcome touch; It was bloody cold out!
Michelle finished a little ways behind me, soldiering home with a nasty little gash in the palm of one hand from a tumble. Unlike me, she says she wasn't sore at all, despite not having run much more than 30 miles all winter. I ran throughout the winter, and my legs ache just putting my pants on in the morning. There may be a lesson there... darned if I can figure it out, though.
We made haste for coffee, for the drive home. I'd been up since 5:40 a.m., waking up before my alarm even sounded in my excitement, despite staying up late Friday night. I had banked up sleep Wednesday and Thursday, knowing I'd be too keyed up for an early bedtime before the race. I will be all the more excited next year, knowing what a rollicking course it is!