By village, by ocean, by carriage trails, by mountain and by woods
Story and pictures by Kevin Molloy
 The Start | It’s a pity this great half marathon is limited to 400 runners due to the National Park regulations. If it wasn’t for that restriction, the race could easily draw 1000 runners. They do not advertise, not even on Cool Running, yet they have to turn away runners every year. Check the results and see the number of far-away towns represented. The race has everything going for it, scenery, friendliness and a great challenging course. Mile 6 and mile 11 are humblers and often it’s only the scenery and the cheers from the crowds lining the carriage trails that pull you through those 2 ugly hills. |
| The weather was not too kind this year. It started off overcast but 2 or 3 times during the race, the clouds opened up and we all carried a couple of extra pounds of water with us. It made very little difference as no one was looking for a PR on that course, not even Joan Benoit-Samuelson, whose time of 1:17:06 was a little off her own course record. | One of the many views from the course |
Joan Benoit-Samuelson – 1st Woman, 9th overall “Not bad for a 40 year old”  | When asked afterwards, if she was happy with her time, her response, accompanied by a huge smile, was “not too bad for a 40 year old”. Joan is definitely a local favorite and when Sharon Kingma (RD) presented her with her prize, the response from the runners nearly brought the roof down in the new YMCA building. Joan asked me to help her promote a new race which she is co-director and we are happy to do that for Joan. She also mentioned that she is running Chicago next month. It only seems yesterday when she won Chicago in a time of 2:21:21 in 1985. That record still stands today and it was during that race that Joan ran her famous “surging miles” of 5:11, 5:15, 5:21 to break the back of her arch rival Ingrid Kristiansen and regain her title as the number #1 woman’s marathon runner in the world. What can Joan do in 1997? She looked great at Bar Harbor.Joan is co-race director of a new 10K road race scheduled for August 1 1998. It will be Maine’s first major prize money road race and will be held in Cape Elizabeth just outside of Portland. It will be fast, scenic and historic. It will offer prize money and travel expenses for elite athletes. You heard about it first at CR. |
| Almost lost in the applause for Joan, was an exceptional time of 1:12:28 by Bryne Decker, who was a full minute ahead of Rober Ashby. I found Bryne in the back of the YMCA playing with his children after the award ceremony. He seemed almost embarassed when asked for a photo. | Bryne Decker – 1st place – not bad for a 30 yr old |