Old Black Point Road

Yesterday evening, I ran the annual Niantic Bay 10K, a fairly flat course that starts near McCook’s Beach and follows Old Black Point Road all the way to the end of the peninsula and back.

Along the course, there were several water stations. This was completely necessary because it was HUMID out last night, and large stretches of the course offered little to no shade. I had been hoping to run in the rain, since that had been the case the last few runs I’ve done due to this abnormally rainy June. But as the day went on, the clouds cleared and the sun came out making a bit hotter than I would have liked.

But in terms of the race, it was very well organized and at each mile marker, there were volunteers who shouted the split times. Overall times were calculated using the pull tag method. I think this method sometimes allows for inaccurate results. (My time was off when they printed the results at the end of the race.) But I think they usually sort out the correct times in the end. The (correct) results were posted in a very timely manner on Coolrunning.com.

They had a good spread of food and drinks at the end, though my friend from Run Rhody mentioned the table with the water was really far away from everything else.

All-in-all, the Niantic Bay 10K is a nice race that draws a competitive crowd.

For those interested in doing training runs in this area, a similar route we have on Jog New London is the 6.6-mile Black Point Run. This route is a loop, instead of an out-and-back, that incorporates other sea views in the Black Point Beach and Attawan Beach areas.