This morning was the 11^th Annual TD BankNorth Beach to Beacon 10k in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. It was a beautiful day in the mid-80s that left the runners very happy to reach the shade on Shore Rd.

Repeating last year’s performance, Ed Muge led the way in 28:05, about 13 seconds behind last year’s time. 11 of those 13 seconds came from the first mile, which went out at only 4:23 this year and allowed for a lead pack of about 12 people to stick together for a few miles. Local favorite Ben True was a part of that pack but fell off the back side, only to pick up the pace and finish in the top 10 with a new Maine Record time of 29:11!

Speaking of Maine Records, Sheri Piers took down the Maine women’s record by 20 seconds with her 34:17 finish (also in the top 10!) Fantastic! That was just over 2 minutes behind Kenya’s Irene Limika, who won the race in 32:06.

There were 5613 finishers this morning, and I was not one of them. I broke my foot last week so I volunteered with the Atayne crew instead and cut D-Tags off of people’s shoes to recycle them with the help of my 11 year old niece. My nephew and my sister ran with the Sweep Crew picking up all of the trash that was left behind on the course, so hopefully we left things a little cleaner than they were before the race and got everything separated into recyclables, compostables and actual trash.

I’ll have another update probably tomorrow about the volunteer experience with the race, which certainly a different way to experience a large race like this.

(More Info: Full Results)