Beach to Beacon 10K Results

What a wonderful experience !  All of the trepidations I had regarding competing with over 6,000 runners for a race in Cape Elizabeth, Maine and the incumbent congestion were for naught. 

Saturday August 7th  began in a hotel in Westbrook Maine at around 5:00 am.  After getting the kids ready and packing up the car we begain our thirty minute commute to Cape Elizabeth.  The fifty degree temperature in the morning was very cold for this time of year.

After about ten minutes of searching for the official runner drop area, we decided to head for a second drop off area at the Cape Elizabeth High school.  The real estate in Cape Elizabeth, a burgeoning coastal town, is very expensive.  It is a beautiful town but the high school appears to be a tad antiquated.

My wife dropped me off at the Cape Elizabeth High school at 6:30 am where I was then shuttled to the race starting line via a bus.  As soon as she dropped me off I climbed aboard an awaiting bus.  I had no wait.  My concern regarding long lines waiting for buses to the starting line never materialized.

Once I got to the starting area I had to take care of personal business.  Their appeared to be on the order of fifty port-o-pots strewn along the road side.  Again, no wait to take care of nature's business.  Although as race time of 8:00 am approached, the lines were more formidable. The best advice I have read relating to running large races is to take care of nature's business as soon as possible. It's not uncommon to wait in line for 15-30 minutes for an available port-o-pot at a race.

I was pleased to see the quarter mile stretch behind the starting line was segmented into pace zones or corrals.  Runners were asked to 'self-seed' and start in the appropriate zone. If I recall correctly, the pace zones began at a five minute per mile pace zone immediately behind the starting line and then proceeded backward to ten minute per mile pace zones.

I had an hour to kill before the race started. After pacing up and down the corrals several times I decided to head toward the race start line and camp there for some time.  The only persons permitted past the race starting line onto the course were elite runners.  Elite runners were denoted by a race bib/number of 151 or below. Because the road behind the starting line was packed like sardines with runners, the only area to warm up was about a half mile behind the starting line, behind all of the corrals.

Many runners have pre-race routines which understandably consist of running at various speeds to get the blood flowing throughout their muscles.  For most every race I have run you use the first tenth of a mile or so of a course to perform your warm-up routine.  My vantage point next to the race official who had to inform runners they were not permitted on the course to warm up provided some humorous incidents with runners who were aghast they could not get on the course to perform their warm-up rituals.  The best 'line' I heard to attempt to get on the course was 'My wife is an elite runner and I want to wish her well.'  His story appeared to be genuine as he was allowed to pass through onto the course.

I started  the race in the seven minute per mile pace zone. The flow of the race start is more orderly if the faster runners begin in the front and the slower runners towards the back of the pack. Remarkably, most people were honest about their starting zones.  When you pass someone in the first mile who is going very slow you know they started in a zone ahead of where they should have started.  This was the exception rather than the rule for this race.

The race employed a timing whereby your 'clock' did not start until you reached the starting line from your starting corral. It took me about one minute to get to the starting line from my position in the starting corrals.

Prior to the race I had relinquished my desire to set a 10K (6.2 miles) personal record in this race because I was convinced I would have to wade slowly through a teeming mass of runners for the first mile or two. Because the self seeding starting corrals worked so well I was able to run at my desired pace immediately from the starting line. I spent a minimal amount of time dodging runners to advance my way through the pack.

I almost forgot a key element of this race.  The temperature at 8:00 am was about 54 degrees and I believe the humidity was reported to be only 29%.  It was very comfortable weather.  For the last training run I completed prior to this race the temperature was in the 90's and the humidity was excessive.  Some runners were wearing jackets and long pants, but I felt great in my shorts and t-shirt. I wore my training sneakers for this race, a pair of Nike Vomero 4's.  I had been suffering from a bruised heel and my racing Mizuno Ronin 2 sneakers provide minimal heel cushioning or support.

When I run a race I don't recall a tremendous amount of detail relating to the course.  I have my eyes focused straight down the road about twenty yards.  What I can remember about this race course was the entire course was lined with spectators from beginning to end.  The number of spectators were estimated to be on the order of 10,000.  This race had all the trappings of an Olympic style event with the crowds cheering along the route and finish.

The combination of the spectators cheering and the collective energy of the runners I was among served to provide an adrenaline surge which lasted from the beginning of the race clear to the end of the race. The race had a formidable sixth mile with two very large hills or ascents.  The last quarter mile consisted of a descent which was conducive to a strong finish. Overall the course was very fair / level.

I had set two personal goals for this race. The first goal was to finish in 47:45 (47 minutes and 45 seconds) while the second was to finish within the top 1500 racers. My official B2B time was 46 minutes and 55 seconds. This translates to an average pace of 7 minutes and 32 seconds per mile. I finished 1142 out of 5670 runners. It was very rewarding to achieve these goals as I was coming off a race where I missed achieving my goal. As a result of this success I am more convinced I have not reached a plateau, i.e., there are more good things to come if I continue to train.

Here is an excellent description of the grueling finish of the race from the Portland Press Herald

If the finish is about resolution -- who wins, who doesn't -- this hill just off Shore Road and inside the old entrance to Fort Williams is about struggle. You've already run the undulating hills to approach the park and here's the entrance, with its odd, reverse angle. To make the turn you slow, scrubbing off momentum and speed. A comparatively steep hill of about 70 yards waits.

"You're fried and you're about to drain whatever energy you have left," said Blake Davis, a former star runner at Falmouth High and the University of Maine. "You've got two more minutes of pain. That's good, because the race is almost over.

"You look up, see that great crowd waiting for you, cheering, and it distracts you enough that you forget how much you're hurting."

Note: The Portland Headlight lighthouse is located within a park named Fort Williams in the town of Cape Elizabeth.

There is a large contingency of runners who annually make this trek to Maine for this race. It is a first class event with first class runners and I was proud to be a part of this event this year. We were truly blessed to have such mild weather. It was icing on the cake to have also run the best I have ever run in a race.