Run to Win

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After the registration fiascos of the past 2 years, I wrote an open letter on how to improve the Beach to Beacon with a few suggestions on how to improve the process (many of which were implemented this year.)

And with this year’s improvements, registration closed once again in record time. Technically, registration is still open for the 1500 lottery entrants, but of the first-come, first-served entries, all 600 of the Cape Elizabeth entries were snatched up in 21 minutes on Friday, and the 4,000 open registrations were all claimed within 32 minutes on Saturday morning.
(Click here to continue reading…)

Just a reminder, registration begins this weekend for the Beach to Beacon 10k.

If you are a Cape Elizabeth resident, you can register tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. and can avoid trying to beat the rush of the other 10,000 people that want to run for 24 hours (or at least until the 600 reserved slots are registered.)

Everybody else can try to register on Saturday morning.

Here are the full details direct from the folks at B2B:
(Click here to continue reading…)

Andy Schachat has just signed on to announce at the Patriot’s Day 5 Miler in Portland, Maine.

Andy is the voice of the Mount Washington Road Race and has announced other premier events such as the Beach to Beacon 10k.

He is very well known in the New England area and always does a great job with any race he’s involved with.

Unfortunately, I’ll be out of town to watch the Boston Marathon (and possibly run Exeter) that weekend so I won’t get a chance to say hi and welcome him to Portland.

(Patriot’s Day 5 Miler)

If you are a race director and put on an RRCA Championship race, you may already qualify for sponsorship by Gatorade.

However, if you put on a non-championship RRCA race, then you can now benefit from discounted rates when purchasing Gatorade products for your race.

Products available through the purchase program include:

• Gatorade Thirst Quencher lemon-lime powder in 14-51 oz. cased – $86.00/case
• 8 oz. cups – $79.50 per case
• 7-gallon coolers – $54/unit

The new program can help race directors save about a third of the cost on aid station supplies.

(More info: RRCA)

Gary Allen was 10^th out of 579 finishers on Saturday at the Snicker’s Marathon in Albany, Georgia. He ran the race in 6:32 pace for a 2:51:03 finishing time, which is doubly impressive because Gary is in his early 50s and has run sub-3 hour marathons every decade since the 1970s.

Here’s a news clip prior to his run from last week: (Click here to continue reading…)

Both Boston and New York both bid for hosting the Olympic Marathon Trials as they did in 2007/2008, but fans will not have to travel to two separate races for the 2012 Trials as Houston has been chosen the location for both the men’s and women’s races.

The city of Houston will be investing $1.7 million dollars to manage the event logistics, athlete support, travel and prize money. The Marathon Trials will be held a day before the Houston Marathon on January 14, 2012, with the top 3 runners of both races getting a slot on the London Olympic Team.

The timing for Houston provides enough time to recover from the race before the Olympics, but is close enough to the early August start of the London Games for the race to still be relevant.
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Click here for a summary of the changes being made this year in the Beach to Beacon registration process.
(Click here to continue reading…)

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The Beach to Beacon 10k is a great destination race, especially for a race of such a short distance. A world class field combined with a scenic (and fun) course in Southern Maine serve to provide a great experience for anybody wanting to vacation in the area.

The race is very popular, as evidenced by it selling out so incredibly fast for the past 2 years, causing all kinds of problems with their payment processor.

In fact, they had enough problems that I decided to write up a list of suggestions on how they could improve the registration process to make it run smoother and more fairly for all involved.

This year, it looks like they took my suggestions (and the suggestions of hundreds of runners both irate and satisfied) seriously and will be improving the process.

Here is a summary of the changes that were outlined in a recent press release:
(Click here to continue reading…)