Mt Monadnock Annual Hike

I recently visited my mother in New Hampshire.  As of last summer, she lives with my oldest brother and his family.  This trip was a quickly assembled family reunion.  My mother was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer and the whole family wanted to get together while she was still in reasonable shape.  It was great seeing my mom, brothers, their wives, and all my nieces and nephews. I also enjoy the New Hampshire landscape...it's lush green and filled with hills and distant mountains. Near my brothers house lies an intriguing lone mountain: Mt Monadnock.  It is supposedly one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world (most likely due to it's reasonable elevation, access roads to the base, multiple trails to the summit, and proximity to Boston).

On my last trip to NH, I hiked to the top of Mt Monadnock with two of my brothers and a niece. It was a lot of fun and also challenging.  New Hampshire is very different from central Illinois...it has lots of rocks...and elevation changes! This year I used my newly zero-dropped Nike Free shoes.  They worked okay, but are not really designed to run on uneven rocky surfaces.  The upper is too flexible and doesn't keep your foot in place when you are on very uneven and steep terrain.  No rocks poked through the bottom of the shoe...I just felt unstable.  I'd prefer my New Balance 790s or Inov-8 Flyrocs.

I've "done the mountain" two years in a row now...maybe this trip to Mt Monadnock can be an annual pilgrimage?  I also like the idea of running the Clarence DeMar Marathon (Keene, NH) in September.  I suppose the hike and the marathon could be done on one trip.  I don't think I'd want to hike the mountain and THEN run the marathon.