Saturday morning found my friend Gail and me up at 6 am for the ride to Cape Elizabeth, ME to take part in the Beach to Beacon 10K. The race was started by Joan Benoit Samuelson, you might know her, she won the gold in LA in the 84 Olympics and she is from Cape Elizabeth. We arrived and jumped on the shuttle to the start. I was feeling good. I had absolutely no expectations. I am running the Falmouth Road Race next weekend so I was not going to do anything crazy.
The gun went off at 8:15 and it took us 3 minutes to get to the start. We took off, the first mile was spent dodging people who started to close to the start and now couldn't keep the pace, we were surprised when we looked at our garmins and were at about an 8:50 pace. Mile 2 is UPHILL. It was nothing crazy, but it lasted a long time, then mile 3 was downhill. I think it is about mile 3 that you go through the little center of town. It was so moving. 2 firetrucks had the American Flag hanging over the road and everyone was cheering. It definitely picked us up and we kept going. After mile 3 we grabbed water at 4 and 5. (there were water stops every mile which was nice.) My water stop at mile 5 stunk a bit as water went up my nose that caused me to have an upset stomach at about 5.5. I could not stop gagging and had to pull off and dry heave for a few seconds. I sent Gail ahead and then kicked it into high gear for the finish. My finish time was 55:10 garmin, 55:19 race time. I was thrilled. I secretly wanted to finish under 55, but honestly who is complaining.
This race is so well run, the refreshments after are great! The towns people are great. There was not a mile where there were not people cheering. They really pushed us to keep going. I will definitely do this race again and we hope to make it a girls weekend next year.
Now, I do have one complaint. When we went to get our numbers on Friday at 2 pm they were out of medium shirts. I can't stand when you don't get the shirt you ordered. Really frustrating and poor planning on their part....but honestly that was our only complaint!
Now...on to Falmouth!!!
Way to go Rene!!! I have been wanting to add this one to my list! Now I guess I will!!! Good luck next week with Falmouth! We are going to try to get out on the course!!!
ReplyDeleteHmmm. I have been having the dry heaving spells too. Great race recap!
ReplyDeleteWay to go! Water up the nose - ugh. You still did awesome though.
ReplyDeleteI have heard great things about this race. My dad lives in ME and he ran it this weekend, too! One day maybe I will get up there for it.
Great job! Can't wait to hear about Falmouth!
Congrats on a great race, Rene!
ReplyDeleteGrr on the shirt thing. That's annoying.
Great race recap. I will be adding this to my list for next year. Best of luck in Falmouth.
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