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New Balance Falmouth Road Race - 40th Anniversary

This year I had the opportunity to run one of the most famous races in the country. The Falmouth Road Race began 40 years ago with only a hundred runners. Last Sunday I ran it with about 11,000. Among the runners were elite, Olympians and other record-holders as well as "back of the pack joggers" (as the website claims - www.falmouthroadrace.com) It is truly a one-of-a-kind experience.

The race is 7 miles long and winds its way from Woods Hole to Falmouth Heights. If you're not familiar with the towns on Cape Cod, here's a map to give you an idea of the course:

It's a beautiful course, with the first 3 miles along the hilly, tree-lined road and the last 4 with scenic views of Martha's Vineyard Sound. Throughout the course, each mile is marked on the pavement in festive red, white and blue:

This is Nobska Lighthouse - just one of the fantastic sights along the way

Oh, and if you'd like a virtual tour of the race:

Ok, so onto the race day itself. I guess I need to backtrack a bit first and give you a little more info. Because Falmouth is such a popular race, they have a lottery system for registration. In early May you submit your name and a few weeks later you receive an email telling you whether or not you got picked. Unfortunately, I was not actually picked for the lottery. But! That didn't mean I couldn't run the race - a friend of mine called me to tell me about Team In Training, an organization that not only raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, but also helps runners train for races (from 5Ks to Marathons and everything in between, like Falmouth!)

 

TNT had received several bibs for the Falmouth Road Race and all I needed to do was call them up and join the team. I would need to raise $1000 by August 3rd, which would guarantee my spot in the race. At first it seemed like a daunting task - $1000 is a lot of money! Through the power of FB, as well as good ol' "snail mail," I asked for donations. I was completely overwhelmed by the generosity of friends and family, especially those who lives had been affected in some way by the diseases. I ended up raising over $1350 for TNT and felt so good the day of the race, knowing this money would support blood cancer research.

Alright, now onto the race!

The day started out rainy. Very rainy, and fairly cold. I was not excited about this AT ALL. In fact, when I woke up that Sunday morning at 6 AM, all I wanted to do was stay in bed, curled up under the covers.

But, I got up, threw on my clothes, grabbed a hat, a protein bar and my water bottle and headed out the door into the rainy morning.

I drove an hour to Falmouth in the pouring rain, hoping and praying that the weather would clear up by the 10:00 start time.

Thankfully, one of my TNT team leaders told us about a good parking spot for the day of the race, since parking is at a premium. This little Methodist church about a quarter of a mile from the school where busses would transport us to the starting line. They offered free parking (I gave them $10 as a donation), water, and restrooms. I parked around 7:40 and made my way to the middle school.

My team met up around 8ish - we made one last pit stop at the Port-o-Potties and then jumped on a bus headed for Woods Hole. Once at Woods Hole, it was a lot of standing around and waiting. I found my corral area and just waited with the other runners. Thankfully by now (around 9 o'clock) the rain had stopped and it was just a grey, dreary day. 

They ended up having to stall the race about 20 mins because of flooding on the course. So the wheelchair racers, who were supposed to start at 9:40, started at 10, and everyone else about 15 mins after that. Because of the extremely large number of runners, there are corrals and they send the corrals in waves. There were 6 corrals in all. I was in #5. It's based on your finish time, so the fast runners were  in corrals 1-3 and us "slow pokes" were in 4-5 :)

Finally, after what seemed like for.ev.er, they called our corral to the front and we lined up, ready for the gun to go off. The clock was at about 18 mins when my corral left

Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the race

• As soon as the rain stopped, it became incredibly humid, and it was already pretty warm. That, plus hills does not make for a good running combo.
• I was grateful to have my hat - it kept the sweat out of my eyes!
• The first 3 miles seemed to fly by, which is crazy, because it was literally ALL HILLS!
• The spectators were some of the best I've seen! Giving out extra water (because of the heat), or orange slices (bless you!) and cheering us on the whole way. Some even sprayed us with their hoses!
• Around mile 4 or 5 the sun came out. And by now, we were on the flat, open road, next to the water. It was HOT! Oh and when I say flat, I really mean rolling hills. Yeah, they lied about that.
• Just when you think you're done with the hills, they throw in ONE more right before the finish. Seriously, people?
• The last half mile is downhill, thank goodness! I got such an energy boost seeing the giant American flag floating over the finish line.

• We got medals at the end for finishing - you can see the ribbon in the picture of me below, but this is a close up of the actual medal part:

• The post-race party was really impressive: free samples of Yasso greek frozen yogurt (so good!), goodie bags from Stop & Shop with fruit, bagels, granola bars, raisins and water, as well as a giant tent serving hot dogs with all the fixings! Yes, I know, hot dogs are disgusting, but after running 7 hilly miles in the heat and humidity, I really didn't care. And it tasted pretty damn good, too!

Pros: Scenic route, great spectators, awesome post-party "goodies"

Cons: HILLS, parking can be an issue, no shuttles back to the start/where you parked. That's right. I got to walk 2 MILES back to my car in the heat of the day after running a 7-mile road race. Yeah, it was awesome.

Grade: A-/B+

Ok, I know that was a super long post! To finish, I will leave you with a picture of my after I finished the race and a final thought: Falmouth was one of the harder races I've ever done, but also one of the most rewarding. It was the longest I've run without using my phone or watch or anything else to track my time - I really enjoyed that part of it, and I hope to run "tech-free" for more races!

P.S. Our names were on our bibs, which meant the spectators could cheer us on individually as we ran past - that was really cool!! Also, because I wasn't chosen for the lottery this year, it means I'm automatically in next year's race - another awesome perk!

Thanks Falmouth! Hope to see you next year!!!

-Sara