Tallahassee to Beach to Beacon (and back again)

In accord with ancient tradition, I recently made the trip back to Maine in order to compete in the Beach to Beacon 10K. For those not familiar with the race, it is one of Maine's premier running events. For those who do not associate my chilly home state with premier running events, consider the following results from this year's race. The male winner, Gilbert Okari of Kenya, ran the rather tough course in 27:37.8. Lest you think that Maine men are lacking in speed, eighteen year old Eric Giddings of South Portland ran a 30:34:0. The fastest woman was Lornah Kiplagat of Holland with a time of 31:34.2. The fastest Maine woman was Emily LeVan of Wiscasset with a time of 35:52.2.

Based on a cursory examination of the results, the fastest Tallahassee runner was me-I came in 336 out of 4,306. I ran a minute faster than last year, having learned that it is best not to revisit my hometown 13 and 16 mile running loops a few days before a 10K. This probably shows that with age comes wisdom. This year I left off the 16 mile loop. This shows that the wisdom acquired from age is somewhat limited.

I suspect most people have stopped reading by now, so that leaves me free to safely engage in my usual feeble attempts at humor that will certainly bring the phrase "he's no Dave Barry" to the minds of many.

The first part of running a race in Maine is, not surprisingly, getting to Maine. Aside from the apparently federally mandated layover in Atlanta, the trip from Tallahassee to Maine was not unpleasant. The planes did not crash-not even once. These days, that is often the best that you can hope for.

The second part of running a race in Maine is getting to the actual race course.

Since my mother subscribes to the theory that it is best to be no less than two hours early to any event, she, my sister and stepmother and I arrived at the vast and 99% empty parking field in the wee hours of the morning. I made my way to the starting area and settled down for a nap. Unlike Florida, Maine lacks those friendly and outgoing fire ants, so you just have to look out for moose mounds when trying to find a nice spot of ground.

Eventually the time to make those final preparations (that is, taking those last few trips to the woods) began. One spectator, obviously new to the whole racing thing, was appalled that runners were just heading behind the nearest bush, twig or unwary spectator to finish that last bit of pre-race lightening. Being a very helpful person by nature, I explained to the spectator that everything was just fine because the situation was governed by the legal principle of cannis runus urinatus. Put loosely, I informed her, before a race runners have the same legal status as wild dogs when it comes to watering rights. In legal jargon, I added, that means that runners can ipso in the factos and quid on the pro quos with impunity. At that point she realized that I, like all runners, was clearly deranged and backed slowly away from me. That was fine-I had only been chatting with her to keep her in place so a fellow runner could file a legal proceeding using her as cover from the rest of the crowd. After the last bush had been watered, the starting gun was fired and thousands of us were off.

The course was somewhat challenging, but the support from the local community was phenomenal. We were cheered the whole way and the last mile was jam packed with spectators urging us on to the finish.

After finishing, we had to struggle up a hill to turn in our race chips. I suspect that all course designers have a sadistic streak-fortunately the person who de­signed this one showed remarkable restraint in only allowing this trait free reign after the end of the actual course. This small torture was more than offset by the huge amounts of food available. As always, I loaded up as much as I could carry and headed to the massage line. I did offer to share some of my loot, but apparently even runners draw the line at sweat soaked bagels. Even when I pointed out that the bagel had been naturally salted and pre-softened, I had no takers. Even the gulls wouldn't touch it.

Based on my experiences over the past two years, I highly recommend the Beach to Beacon. Although it is a bit of a trip from Tallahassee, the race is well worth it. It is extremely well organized and draws world class runners (and people like me as well). Further, Maine is a great place to visit. Come for the race, have some lobsters after and do the tourist thing. You will be glad you did. And so will the Maine Tourism Board ... who most certainly did not bribe me with lobsters to write this glowing recommendation.