Karen Pajer, Scott-Schaeffer-Duffy criss-cross state, running 5K in every town

There was just too much fun involved in their previous quest, there just had to be a sequel.

Karen Pajer and Scott Schaeffer-Duffy were fairly fresh off their quest of running together through every street in Worcester when the seed was planted for the next project.

“It was almost exactly a year ago, at the (Central Mass Striders) members banquet when I heard one of the girls,” Pajer said, “and for her COVID project, she set out to run through all the towns in her state of Rhode Island, which she has not finished because racing came back.”

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Of course that idea struck a Bay State chord with Pajer, knowing it would take some convincing to commit Schaeffer-Duffy. Four months later, the mission began.

As they prepared Thursday to drive to the Berkshires to run through five more towns, Pajer and Schaeffer-Duffy had completed runs of 5 kilometers or more through all but 100 of Massachusetts’ 351 cities/towns, and they’re not looking back.

While such a project over 351 days has appeared daunting to the two at times, they’ve been enriched by much more than merely checking off a box on a lengthy bucket list.

“I’m surprised at the enormous diversity of Massachusetts,” Schaeffer-Duffy said. “There are thriving cities, and there are places with old-growth timber in the same state. It’s much more diverse than I realized, and there are a lot of beautiful places to go that are off the beaten track. There are hundreds of places.”

And the fun has continued, picking up from when Schaeffer-Duffy at Pooh and Pajer as Piglet took on the Hundred Acre Wood known as all the streets of Worcester. The car rides provide plenty to behold.

“You should hear the conversations in the car,” Pajer said. “ ‘Are we there yet?’ No. ‘What about now?’ No. ‘About now?’ No.”

While in each and every town, they have taken photos of landmarks in each and popped them into notebooks. After learning how to find these places in unfamiliar areas of the state, they learn a whole lot more about the community. Treks often are planned to coincide with historically significant dates. Call it a year-long history course about the Commonwealth in which we live.

It all began last Halloween, and the destination fittingly was Salem.

“The day before Halloween, we were at the (CMS) Saturday morning run,” Pajer recalled,” and he’s like, are we running tomorrow, and I said I’m running with Claire (Schaeffer-Duffy’s wife) and a friend. And he says, ‘Good, we don’t have to run any towns.’

“I said wait, you’re on board for the towns project? Forget it, I’ll ditch Claire, no problem.”

“I said I would do Salem because it would be fun on Halloween, one town,” Schaeffer-Duffy said. “We get there and say, we’ll since we’re out here … we should do Marblehead and Swampscott …”

Through the fall and into the winter, the goal was to hit about seven towns per week, providing a sufficient pace to complete the challenge in a year. Pajer, 54, a second grade teacher in Leicester, and Schaeffer-Duffy, almost 64, are trying to pick up the pace to advance to 20-25 towns ahead of schedule before the school year begins in late August.

The goal is to finish on Oct. 17, two weeks shy of a year since setting out, sharing the accomplishment in Worcester at the weekly CMS Monday night run.

The two have run relatively injury free since the spring, though there was some concern shortly after the snow cleared.

“I thought it was going to be over in March because I had an injury (hamstring, hip flexor) that was so painful,” said Schaeffer-Duffy, no stranger to pain having been seriously injured three years ago after being struck by a car while running. “People were telling me I needed to take four weeks off.  And I don’t do that.”

They’ve chosen their runs appropriately through several towns. On the day of the Boston Marathon, they took the CMS entrants bus to Hopkinton where they ran from the starting line before the race, and also from the former starting line in Ashland. Two days later, on April 20, they ran on the Battle Road from Lexington through Lincoln and on toward Concord, after seeing youths reenacting the first skirmishes of the American Revolution.

In Rockland, they came upon a Mother’s Day Memorial – on Mother’s Day. In Great Barrington, they passed the homestead of sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois on the day after Juneteenth.

“It’s wound up way more than I thought,” Pajer said. “We’re trying to work a route around seeing these sites.”

“Once in a while, we can schedule something where we can run two towns straight through, as the landmarks line up,” added Schaeffer-Duffy, a peace activist and founding member of the Saints Francis and Therese Catholic Worker who also coaches cross-country at South High.

One such run covered North Quincy and Quincy, where Schaeffer-Duffy posed for a picture with the statue of former President John Adams, an ancestor on Schaeffer-Duffy’s family tree, on his mother’s side.

The exciting sights are too numerous to list, including Johnny Appleseed items in Leominster, the peace statue with “crabby faces) in Norfolk, and out west with the state’s highest waterfall in Mount Washington and the Peace Pagoda in Leverett. Of course there have been plenty of white churches spotted near town commons, and many more side streets of dirt roads upon heading west.

“Some towns surprise us with their beauty of particular things, some towns shock us with the lack of (such beauty),” Schaeffer-Duffy said.

Pajer plans the logistics for the runs and has taken on most of the driving. She did get pulled over for speeding once in the far western part of the state, but received just a warning from a gentleman the fondly refer to as “Officer Friendly.”

“She’s been driving by the book ever since,” Schaeffer-Duffy cracked.

Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, also an avid runner, has joined the two on a couple of thejaunts through local towns, but notes the quest isn’t quite for her.

“It’s a big time commitment,” she said while noting the educational value. “I think any exploration is great, and I believe in exploring the world.”

Among towns still remaining are all those on Cape Cod and the islands. “We didn’t even know Gosnold existed,” Schaeffer-Duffy said of the town with just 70 residents encompassing the Elizabeth Islands in Dukes County. The two tentatively have planned a ferry there from New Bedford on July 3, with coverage of Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and the Cape candidates for later in the month.

“We’re still looking forward to a lot of these places,” he added. “The Cape has a lot to offer, and I’ve never been to Nantucket.”

Also on the reserve list is Boston, where a run along the Common or the Charles is receiving high consideration, with a parting photo in front of the State House is likely.

The trek through the Bay State also has provided occasional lessons in Pajer’s second grade classroom. “There’s 351 towns, so we did a math problem out of it — if we’re doing 3.1 miles in every town, and there’s 351 towns, how many miles are we running?"

While she has downplayed the challenge in class, Pajer appreciates what she has picked up along the way, which continued Thursday through Alford, Richmond, West Stockbridge, Stockbridge and Lenox.

“It’s been a learning experience,” she said, “and that was not part of the expectation, because it was originally just a silly, stupid thing. There’s been learning along the way, and that part I hadn’t planned on.”

Kanaracus race in October

Just less than a week after the state quest is completed, Schaeffer-Duffy will present the annual Nick Kanaracus 5K to benefit the South High cross-country program.

The event is a fitting memorial to running community gentleman Nick Kanaracus, a South High graduate who was a marathoner, past president of Central Mass Striders and strident supporter of South cross-country before his passing in 2016.

The Oct. 23 race at South High (170 Apricot St., Worcester) has a free-will offering registration at 1 p.m., followed by the race at 2. For more information, contact Schaeffer-Duffy at @theresecw2@gmail.com.

—Contact John Conceison at john.conceison@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ConceisonJohn.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Karen Pajer, Scott-Schaeffer-Duffy criss-cross Massachusetts, running 5K in every town