Saturday, August 04, 2007

Spectator at the Beach to Beacon 10K

I had the pleasure to watch quite a few friends compete in the Beach to Beacon 10K race in Cape Elizabeth this morning. I drove the finish line, keeping an eye out for my friend Stephen who's wife was competing in the race. After wandering around a bit, he ended up finding me as I had my headphones on and couldn't hear him behind me.

We set up at a great spot about a 1/4 mile from the finish line with his son and daughter (who are both great kids) and watched as the wheelchair athletes came in. Shortly thereafter, the Kenyans came flying in and ended up taking a one, two finish. It wasn't too much longer when our friend Blaine came flying by, finishing in 83rd place out of more than 4800 runners. That's one quick dude! Very impressive.

Saw several other friends going by including Stephen's wife, Kelly, and then we headed to the finish line to congratulate everyone.

It's great being a spectator at times and simply root on the other runners, whether you know them or not. It's amazing how big of a boost you can get when a complete stranger singles you out and cheers you on. It's only right, not to mention a lot of fun, to give that back and do it for someone else.

Even though I'm still in a recovery phase, I still felt a tinge of that "I should be out there" mindset creep in. I'll probably give a go at a 5K race to be determined later this month or in early September. It's fun to put the pedal to the metal with those shorter races and it's been a while since I've done so.

1 comment:

Blaine Moore said...

Thanks for cheering me on; you and Ziggy (Brian Gillespie - about a half mile earlier) were the only two people that I saw that cheered for me. I heard my name at least 7 or 8 times, too. I was pretty focused!

Not all of those front runners were Kenyans this year. Meb Keflezeghi was only about 6 seconds behind the two leaders, and he is American. He beat me by over a minute per mile. That ain't walkin'....

If you are looking for a fun race (even if it is on roads) the St. Peter's 4 miler is this Friday. It starts on India Street in Portland. I've had to miss it for the past couple of years running, and will miss it again this year, but I enjoy the race a lot.