Ahead of the 124th Army-Navy game at Gillette Stadium, runners from both academies are trekking several states on foot with the game footballs in hand.
It’s a tradition dating back to the 1980s called running the ball, and a portion of both the Army and Navy marathon teams' routes will run through the state of Connecticut.
Army cadets started their 200-mile journey from West Point at 6 a.m. on Thursday and ran their first 70 miles to Torrington, arriving around 5 p.m. Then, a second group of runners stepped off for the second leg. A third group will continue the journey Friday, and the team will run the football onto the gridiron for the big game.
“In my entire West Point career, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever done,” said Andrew Poe, a member of the Army West Point marathon team, who will be the first runner of the second leg. “A couple of my teammates…we’ve been joking honestly for this spot. We call it the midnight riders, so we’ll be running from about four to one in the morning.”
Get top local stories in Connecticut delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Connecticut's News Headlines newsletter.
The cadets took turns running up and down hilly roads on Route 4, and were met with some snowflakes on their journey in Cornwall.
“This is my 10th time and we’ve run very cold weather and snow and sleet all kinds of weather. This is cold tonight, this is hillier than most of our runs, and a little bit longer than last year, but the cadets are determined,” Lt. Col. Thomas Tolman said.
After their first leg, they were met with trays of pasta, pizza and other fuel to keep them going. The spread was thanks to the West Point Parents’ Club of Connecticut.
Local
“It’s such a honored tradition to for the marathon team to run the game ball and so we were just super thrilled that they could run through Connecticut. We were just wanting to support them in any way we could,” said Susan Cooper of the parents’ club, whose son is a cadet.
Navy midshipmen started their running journey on Tuesday as they will run over 450 miles from the naval academy in Annapolis, Maryland. They entered Connecticut early Friday morning.
We caught up with them in Naugatuck.
