Enfield
Smith, 46, is a six-time winner of the popular race from Pomfret to Quechee, capturing his fifth consecutive installment on June 5 with a time of 1 hour, 16 minutes, 34 seconds, 2:26 faster than runner-up Harrison Little, of Lebanon.
A native of England, Smith has placed in the top 20 during all 15 of the Covered Bridges Half Marathons he’s run, finishing in the top 10 on 14 occasions with 11 top-threes to complement his half-dozen wins.
It’s not the only successful race for Smith, a two-time CHaD Hero Half Marathon winner and four-time champion of the John Langhans 7-Miler in Woodstock. Yet the CBHM has become a traditional favorite for Smith, who first ran it one year after moving to the U.S. in 1996.
“It’s the most prestigious race in our area, the only thing like it and the only half marathon around here until CHaD (in October),” Smith said during an interview in his Enfield condominium. “You never expect to win or take it for granted, because you never know what kind of day the others are going to have.”
A svelte 6-foot-4 and 145 pounds, Smith said being slim helped spark his interest in running while being raised in the village of Brinscall, England. That was home to the Great Hill Fell Race, a two-mile uphill jaunt to the top of the moors.
“The first time I ran it I was 12, and I always saw old pictures of my dad (Jim Smith), who also ran as a boy,” Smith said. “Plus, being skinny is no good for football (soccer).”
Smith ran cross country and track for club teams throughout high school and college, the latter while attending now-defunct Manchester (England) Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), where he earned an engineering doctorate.
“It was more of a club team than a university team, but we ran all over,” Smith said. “We’d travel to places like Oxford and Cambridge to compete on weekends and then train during the week. I’ve always kept my miles relatively low. Some of my peers log 100 miles per week; I probably peak at around 50.”
Smith placed 19th in his first CBHM in 1997, in awe of how many participants it attracted. He learned only later how high of a demand the race had.
“I must have lucked out on the timing (of registration) to get a spot in 1997,” he said. “I didn’t know at the time that you have to sign up in the first 20 minutes or you’re out of luck.”
Smith returned to England briefly to work for a company that consults with Formula One auto racing teams, returning to Lebanon-based software development company Fluent (now Ansys) just 10 months later. He placed ninth in the 1999 CBHM (1:14:59), then was absent for three years while pursuing races in the New England Grand Prix circuit.
Smith returned in 2003 and placed in the top four overall for seven straight years, getting his first win in 2008 when he surpassed Hanover’s Chetan Huded on a downhill stretch near Taftsville.
“(Huded) was way out in front, probably led me by about 10 or 11 seconds going up the hill after the Taftsville covered bridge,” said Smith, who has run his own software company for the last decade.
“I was able to pass him going back down the hill. It’s kind of funny: I’ve noticed that in England I was fairly good (compared to peers) going up hills and not very good descending, whereas in the U.S., it appears to be the opposite. I catch up with people quite a bit while descending. I don’t know if it might be because of a different coaching style over here — if they tell people to go hard uphill and ease up down hill — I’m not really sure what it is.”
Smith missed the 2010 race while running for the Gate City Striders at the Mount Washington Road Race, a grueling run up New England’s tallest peak. He placed third in the 40-44 age group among USATF-registered runners, helping Gate City win that category as a team, but he doesn’t plan to run there again.
“It’s just too much (uphill); it’s not very fun,” he said. “Even some of the most hilly races I’ve run have at least one flat section.”
Smith placed third in his return to CBHM in 2011 (1:15:31) behind Claremont’s Justin Montgomery and Bow, N.H., resident John Hall. He hasn’t lost since, edging Bernat Olle, of Cambridge, Mass., by 24 seconds in 2012; overcoming steamy conditions to beat Canaan’s Jotham Burnett by 11 seconds in ’13; bettering New York City’s James Wyper by 47 seconds in ’14; and beating Little by 1:01 and 2:26, respectively, over the last two years.
Smith — whose diet consists mainly of simple carbohydrates and who cross-trains on bicycles — refrains from overtly strategizing prior to CBHMs or any other races. He pointed out that his best CBHM time is 1:12:55 in 2006, when he placed third.
“I’d say strategy is about 5-10 percent of what factors into a race, no more,” he said. “It’s really about keeping yourself in the best shape you can. If someone else has a great race, there’s not much you can do. If someone ran a 1:14 this year, I would have been way behind.”
A member of the Upper Valley Running Club, Smith plans to run in Sunday’s Skip’s Run in Lebanon, Enfield’s Shaker 7 a week later and a gamut of local and regional races throughout the summer and fall. (These days, he’s joined by his wife, Alison Findon, who tired of attending races only as an observer.)
Then it will be back to cycling, which Smith says helps keep his knees strong, and preparing for — you know it — the 2017 Covered Bridges Half Marathon.
Do Smith’s rivals envy him for coming out on top for so many straight years?
“I would imagine so for some of them, but a lot of the people there are my teammates (with Upper Valley Running Club),” he said. “I think most people are quite happy for me.”
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3225.