Beach to Beacon 10K

Well after three weeks away from blogging, and after three GREAT Guest Posts (thanks ladies!), I decided it was time for me to get back to writing!  My vacation was so great and as soon as that was over I got to spend 4 nights in Vegas for work.  That meant long and tiring days, but hey, I was in Vegas baby!  More on that work trip later...
First up is the 10K I ran in Maine on my first full day of vacation.
Back in March, I was lucky enough to have gotten into the Beach to Beacon 10K.  Registration opened at 7am and by 7:08am it was sold out.  7,000 runners were in and it was awesome that it included me, my sister, my brother-in-law, my cousin and my uncle.
This race takes place in Cape Elizabeth, Maine... a beautiful little town along the Maine coast.  This race was established 14 years ago by Joan Benoit Samuelson, Cape Elizabeth resident and winner of the 1984 Gold Medal in the first Olympic Women's Marathon.  Dave McGilvray is the Race Director (as in he is the Race Director of the Boston Marathon), so you knew this would be a first class event.  
There were elite athletes from all over the world running for the money.  The winner (from Kenya obviously) got through the 6.2 miles in 27:46.  Amazing!!  14 seconds separated the male runners 1 through 4.  Would have loved to have seen that coming down the home stretch!  Rumor had it, Dana Kastor was suppose to be running, but we couldn't find her in the results afterwards... well it was my brother-in-law looking up the results.  I was drinking coffee and relaxing :)
The course starts outside the entrance of Crescent Beach State Park and finishes at the Portland Head Light, the nation's first commissioned lighthouse and a really beautiful spot!
The below two pics are from Brightroom's Beach to Beacon 10K promo site:

Start line outside of Crescent Beach

Finish line at Portland Head Light

The race is described as a fast point-to-point course along the Maine Coast.  Ok, yup, I agree with that.  It is also said that it is a net downhill course.  The first mile... all downhill, great!  The rest of the course... rolling hills.  This Florida-living girl was not prepared for the ups and downs of this course.  I did great my first 5K... regular race pace, right on track and then the last half, my legs were just shot.

It got to the point where I was not dreading the uphills, but the downhills.  Usually when running down a hill, I just drop my arms to the side and enjoy the ride... weeee!  The 'weeee' factor was done after the like the gatrillionth (you didn't know that was a word?!) hill.  I walked a couple of times, yet I was excited approaching the finish area.  I had practiced running the last 800 meters of a long run as fast as I could on tired legs and that is what I wanted to do during this race.  I was fine until I saw one last, steep hill at about mile 6.1.  I definitely said "F*CK" as soon as I saw it.  Man that last little hill really blew.  They actually keep a paramedic at the top of the hill because there has been a history of people going down at that spot.  Anyways, I did get through it and finish, a good 5 minutes slower than I wanted, but what can you do.  I am use to running a quick, little hill and then have a mile and a half to recover before getting to the next quick, little hill.

The rest of my family were all fast and awesome!  They had all run the race last year and I heard a lot of "It wasn't as bad as I remembered".   Yea... whatever...

Here's me barely making it
into the finish line photo

You know when you are done a race some of the things you say are negative, "Heat, humidity, hills, blah, blah, blah, crab, crab, crab" but then right after you say all that, you are ready for the next race?!  That was me, my sister and brother-in-law that Saturday.  It was a pretty funny drive home.  

Honestly none of my complaining was towards any of the race organization... it was a fantastic race!  I recommend it to anyone who wants to try signing up at 7am on a March morning.  Great crowds pretty much the entire time... my favs were the house that had 'YMCA' blaring, so fun!  People had their garden hoses out and were showering us with much needed cold water, thanks!  Parking was easy, buses were easy.  The course was really nice and Joan was at the finish line congratulating runners.  I missed her, but my sister saw her.  Water, bananas and watermelon (score!) post race, loved it all!

I hope to run this again one day... I WILL be better prepared for those hills!