{"id":16419,"date":"2026-08-13T16:24:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=16419"},"modified":"2026-08-13T16:24:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:24:51","slug":"how-to-teach-your-kids-to-love-type-2-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=16419","title":{"rendered":"How to Teach Your Kids to Love Type 2 Fun"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Published August 13, 2026 10:16AM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I wanted to plant a seed with my daughters: that running, including the more competitive, pin-on-your-bib variety, is as much about traveling somewhere new as it is about discovering something about yourself. Outdoor people have a taxonomy for this. Type 1 fun is fun while it\u2019s happening: ice cream, a pool, a chairlift. Type 2 fun is miserable in the moment and fun later, in the reflection of what you just went through (and usually includes musings of when you\u2019ll get to do it next). Type 3 fun is not fun at any point and sometimes ends in a helicopter rescue. I think the trick to maximizing fun isn\u2019t avoiding Type 2\u2014if you\u2019re healthy enough for it, you gotta keep Type 2ing. The trick is keeping the portion small and surrounding it with enough Type 1 to cushion it. Getting outdoors doesn\u2019t have to be an all-in pursuit. And if you\u2019re agro enough to think that, I guess you can call everything that\u2019s not your Type 2 pursuit \u201crecovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

I chose the Litchfield Hills Road Race (LHRR)<\/a> as the setting for this life lesson. Litchfield is a little Connecticut town (population about 1,250) two or three hours from New York, depending on traffic. My trips out of the city and into nature have lately centered on the Catskills, and Litchfield feels like a different country\u2014more New England, more pressed. Agrarian but refined. Less Catskills, more Cotswolds.<\/p>\n

The race distances were manageable: a 7-miler for me, a 2.3-mile race for my 13-year old daughter, who runs cross-country and has opinions about Hokas, and a one-mile run for my 10-year old daughter\u2014her first race ever. The cannon (it\u2019s a literal cannon) doesn\u2019t fire until 1 P.M., which the race\u2019s own website frames as a perk: \u201cSleep in.\u201d This is true. It is also true that a June race starting at 1 P.M. is the exact moment the sun absolutely sucks. This leads to a nickname for part of the race: \u201cMicrowave Mile\u201d\u2014an unshaded stretch along Whites Woods Road, appropriately near St. Anthony Cemetery.<\/p>\n

The mansion entrance to the Belden House.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the real reason I picked Litchfield was Belden House, which meant the Type 1 was handled before we ever pinned on a bib. Belden House & Mews<\/a> opened last year in the center of town, a three-acre spread combining an 1888 Victorian mansion and a 1959 modernist annex\u2014the town was a mid-century haunt of Marcel Breuer and Eliot Noyes. There\u2019s a nice little pool and a spa, and the rooms are relaxing and distinct without being fussy or stupid-modern. But it\u2019s arguably the food that makes the place. We drove up Friday in time for dinner: a seafood tower my daughters treated as an architectural excavation\u2014poached shrimp, lobster ceviche, mussels in a green curry dressing\u2014and then the aged duck breast, the standout, which is really duck three ways: croquettes, a broth with cappelletti, and the breast itself, served with fresh and charred ramps. Afterward the common room filled up\u2014guests with their dogs, amaro and martinis, and a couple playing chess.<\/p>\n

Saturday was the Type 1 clinic. We did easy, flat walks at Topsmead State Forest\u2014a former estate with an English cottage sitting in a meadow\u2014and around the White Memorial Conservation Center. We got fried artichoke sandwiches at Petraroia Deli on West Street, where I had my first Foxon Park White Birch Beer, a cane-sugar soda made in East Haven since 1922 and the kind of hyper-local specialty that makes a place feel like a place. We stopped for cream at Arethusa Farm (get the Almond with Toasted Coconut). At no point did anyone suffer.<\/p>\n

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A meadow at Topsmead State Forest. <\/span> (Photo: Kevin Sintumuang)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sunday, the races. The LHRR is a small-town production in the best sense\u2014everything radiates from the Green, and the crowd support is completely out of proportion to the field. My younger daughter ran her mile through the streets around the town center. My older daughter did the best of all of us: eighth-fastest girl in the 2.3, on a course that includes a stretch of Gallows Lane\u2014the hill Runner\u2019s World<\/i> has ranked among the ten most daunting in American racing. I did not tell her about the hill\u2019s reputation until after.<\/p>\n

My 7 miles were a mix of roads and hills, but also trails and grass, which gives the whole thing a very New England feel. For a little race, it\u2019s pretty exciting. There are bands along the course, mostly classic rock, at least this year. My favorite moment: a band playing Tom Petty\u2019s \u201cLast Dance with Mary Jane\u201d while a whiff of weed drifted over from what I assume was a spectator. Maybe another runner. That\u2019s cool. Somewhere on Gallows Lane I brushed up against Type 3\u2019s outer suburbs and adjusted my pace accordingly. There\u2019s no shame in walking up Gallows Lane.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what my daughters will remember about Litchfield. The duck, maybe. A medal in a drawer. A walk in the meadow. That\u2019s all fine. I was never trying to convince them that racing is fun. They\u2019ll need to find that in their own way. I was trying to show them that the hard part can be small, and everything around it can be easy. If that\u2019s what stuck, I\u2019m calling it a win. And if someday one of them wants to run the full seven? Well, I know a hill I won\u2019t tell her about until after.<\/p>\n

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The pool at Belden House.<\/span> (Photo: Belden House)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Guide<\/h2>\n

Belden House & Mews<\/b><\/h3>\n

The hotel is new, but the pedigree isn\u2019t: it\u2019s a sister property to Troutbeck, the acclaimed Hudson Valley estate hotel in Amenia, and it\u2019s already picked up a Michelin Key of its own. The complex today spans three buildings: the mansion, the 1959 modernist Mews out back, and the 1891 firehouse next door, a National Historic Landmark now repurposed as a meeting and event space. During the renovation, workers found the original 19th-century craftsmen\u2019s signatures hidden in the woodwork. Some have been reproduced on the walls of select rooms. There\u2019s a fifty-foot heated pool, the Bathhouse spa, and a lawn set up for croquet. The race itself runs the second Sunday in June, cannon at 1 p.m. sharp\u2014book Belden well ahead, since the whole town fills up, and it\u2019s close enough to the Green to walk to the start and skip the parking scramble.<\/p>\n

Arethusa Farm<\/b><\/h3>\n

The ice cream shop is technically in Bantam, a few minutes south of the Green, and worth the short drive. Sixteen percent butterfat, made from the farm\u2019s own herd. Get the Almond with Toasted Coconut.<\/p>\n

Petraroia Deli<\/b><\/h3>\n

Sandwiches on West Street, on bread from The BakeHouse, Litchfield\u2019s own scratch bakery. Get a Foxon Park White Birch Beer alongside \u2014 a cane-sugar soda made in East Haven since 1922 that you won\u2019t find much outside Connecticut.<\/p>\n

White Memorial Conservation Center<\/b><\/h3>\n

4,000 acres of trails, but the Little Pond boardwalk is the move with kids: flat, elevated above the marsh, about a mile and a half, and it crosses the Bantam River twice.<\/p>\n

Topsmead State Forest<\/b><\/h3>\n

The former summer estate of Edith Morton Chase, who left it to the state in 1972 \u2014 flat meadow walks around an English-style cottage. The Cotswolds comparison, made literal.<\/p>\n


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Published August 13, 2026 10:16AM I wanted to plant a seed with my daughters: that running, including the more competitive, pin-on-your-bib variety, is as much about traveling somewhere new as it is about discovering something about yourself. Outdoor people have a taxonomy for this. Type 1 fun is fun while it\u2019s happening: ice cream, a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wild-living"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}