37th Falmouth Road Race

My first Falmouth Road Race is behind me now, and won't soon be forgotten. It was absolutely beautiful this morning. I had a fairly solid plan to leave the house at around 7:20, pick up our friend, Jeremy, in North Falmouth, then go to Lawrence School via a not-so-direct route and hope to get there by 7:45. Everything went as planned and Mrs was able to drop us off at the buses right on time and leave with very little headache.

Buses.

I could imagine the number of buses required to get the runners to Woods Hole, but seeing them all in one spot was amazing. I saw buses from school districts I had never heard of before. We were in Woods Hole about 2 hours prior to the start. We hung around the starting line for a little while, until we were moved back and away from the elite runners' starting area.

This is a camera phone shot of the starting line not long before the street was filled with thousands of participants.

This is near the scientific complexes in Woods Hole. We were to assemble behind the yellow balloons until our very massive group was moved closer to the starting line for the staggered start. You can see Wonder Woman on the left... Yes. She beat me to the finish.

Somewhere below this mass of human beings is the road. While we waited, the National Anthem was performed and the US Coast Guard flew over with a Falcon jet and a Jayhawk helicopter.

Mrs caught this image of them at the finish.

So, the race itself was somewhat difficult, especially for the first 2 or 3 miles. The sheer volume of people did not allow for optimal running and both Jeremy and myself found ourselves going around people, over grass and onto the road shoulder, as politely as possible. The first two miles were over 10 minutes each, so we would have to make it up once it thinned out, if it thinned out.

Another difficulty was navigating the water stops. We did not require them and one really had to monitor which side of the road these things were on. If you got stuck in one you were toast. This became a problem for me in the last couple miles as I misjudged and ended up in a crowd which required me to side step around a number of people. It was here that I lost sight of Jeremy, and , indeed, he got nearly a full minute ahead of me. No worries though. I did not stop and hopefully I did not cut off too many folks who were trying to get over for water.

Mrs was waiting for me at the finish and took a bunch of images. She was not allowed too near the finish though, so there are no photos of that.



Huge flag just prior to the finish line.

Race founder Tommy Leonard (in the blue hat).

Press truck/trailer coming over the line just before the winner (Tilahun Regassa). The American favorite, Mebrahtom Keflezighi, came in 5th.

The large park in Falmouth Heights where most gathered after the race. This was before it got really full.
I met up with Mrs near the Cape Cod Potato Chips tent.

We also relocated Jeremy and his family nearby. It was a plus having someone that I knew to run with. Thank you, Jeremy! I completely missed Jennifer and had thought, incorrectly, that she was not going to be there.

My official time 65 minutes, 3 seconds. Placed 2,550 among males and 3,851 overall. That really sounds absurd, but there were almost 9,000 official finishers. Congrats to everyone!

An amazing day. Not much else can describe it.

More great Road Race images here from Cape Cod Times.