Ann Fisk still has the first flyer ever produced to promote the Montague Mug Race.
The event, known originally as the Montague Old Home Day Race, has been a fixture in the Franklin County running calendar each August until this year, when it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The race, which usually comes the week after the Bridge of Flowers Classic, has been around since 1981. Fisk had a hand in that first running, and she hasn’t gone anywhere in the nearly 40 years since.
The longtime race director said the entry fee for the inaugural run was $2.
“We all have to be thankful for the support we get,” Fisk said recently. “You keep your passion in it and feed off the support you get. That’s what has kept us going for so many years.
“The 10th year of the race, we threw a big party and thought we were done. But so many people support us, we’ve managed to keep it going all these years.”
The race was the brain child of Al Ross and Fred Wissmann. When Ross moved from New York to Montague to be a founding physician of Connecticut River Internists, he rented a home close to the Montague Common and established a daily running route that traveled over Taylor Hill and along the river. His insistence that a road race be added to the Old Home Day’s lineup eventually paid off, and the race was born.
“Al kept needling me, ‘You’ve got to do a race,’” Fisk recalled. “Connie Putnam was the one who said we have to come up with something catchy for the name. Get a local potter to make mugs, or something. It just kind of stuck. August is humid and muggy. It felt like a good name.”
The name changed to the Mug Race that next year, and pewter mugs were handed out to winners as prizes.
The course for the event was actually Ross’ daily route – a 5.5-mile jaunt that starts and finishes in Montague Center, taking runners from Taylor Hill Road, over Meadow Road and back down Old Sunderland Road. The course remained relatively intact until 1996, when flooding wiped out part of Old Sunderland Road. For a few years, the course was altered, cutting off the top of Taylor Hill Road, and when things were eventually fixed, there was a choice to be made.
“OK, am I going back to the old course or stick with the new course?” Fisk said. “Turns out, runners missed Taylor Hill so we moved it back to the original and it’s really been pretty much the same course this whole time.”
As with most good races in the area, volunteers are what makes the engine run, according to Fisk. She said there’s been a dedicated core of helpers throughout the years.
“I have to find jobs for people sometimes because we have so many people wanting to help,” she said. “That’s what makes the community. If I look back at volunteer sheets, there have been people working on the race for the entirety of it. It’s little things that keep your community races what they are.”
And that’s what keeps Fisk involved. While she’s not a runner herself, she said the spirit of the race and ambiance surrounding the festivities each August makes for a special experience.
“I guess I do it because it’s a good fundraiser, but I love to the camaraderie of the runners,” she said.
The history of road racing in Montague isn’t limited to just the Mug Race. The Sawmill River 10K has become an annual tradition every January 1, and the race, another of Ross’ brainchildren, was founded in 1988. Now hosted by the Montague Parks & Recreation Department, the event benefits their Sponsor-A-Child Scholarship Program.
When it was founded, the Sawmill River 10K supported the Mount Toby Landtrust and Montague Grange. Bags of potatoes from Smiarowski Farm were given out as prizes, and baked potatoes and cookies were offered to all runners – hot food on mostly cold days. At its peak, the race attracted upward of 250 runners, and Bob and Mary Ellen Perry from Bicycle Unlimited handled the official race timing.
“Many times the weather was a little iffy,” Fisk said. “Several years we had sleet and didn’t think runners would show. One year it was particular icy and we were amazed the first runner to come through the door was from East Longmeadow.”