BRUNSWICK

Hey, did you know that there will be about 6,000 runners in Saturday’s 15th annual TD Beach to Beacon 10K?

And, did you know that only a small sample — 134 to be exact — have actually taken part in each and every event?

The short list includes Brunswick’s very own Deb DeGraff, a true “streak runner” who is planing on being in Cape Elizabeth bright and early tomorrow.

A Professor of Economics at Bowdoin College, she started running at age 16 and has been doing so ever since, everywhere she has lived including Switzerland and Bangladesh.

What’s kind of neat about Deb is that she has a strong sense about the Beach to Beacon tradition, her on-going accomplishment, Beacon founder Joan Benoit Samuelson (winner of the first Olympic women’s marathon in 1984), and the state of Maine, which surely benefits from the race.

This is her story:

As one who grew up in Illinois right around the time that Title IX was just starting to get under way, Deb, 53, didn’t see a whole lot of female participation in sports, but with a brother she was always involved one way or another.

“I was raised in Illinois and was always athletic. I grew up in a time when there weren’t a lot of formal opportunities for girls, but I have an older brother and grew up in a neighborhood which was mostly boys.

“I was always outdoors from the beginning, but by the time I got to high school Title IX had passed and there were starting to be formal athletic opportunities for girls in school. So, I started playing on formal, competitive teams.”

“I was just barely young enough to have benefited from Title IX working its way into the public school system.”

During her high school years she began running in the summer months simply to “keep in condition for the sports that I would be doing during the school year.”

She participated in volleyball, basketball, softball and field hockey, and while at Knox College (in her hometown of Galesburg), she played volleyball, basketball and softball.

She’s been at Brunswick for 21 years and can still chuckle that “I’m still from away, for sure.”

And, she has a unique perspective when it comes to running in road races.

“I don’t consider myself competing against others. It’s all about enjoying it and having my own individual goals. I’ve never competed as a runner in the way that I competed in other sports. It’s more of enjoying the process, staying healthy.”

Stay the course

She hasn’t done anything different leading up to the Beach to Beacon.

“I just try to gradually increase my mileage. That’s true for many of the not-ashardcore runners here in Maine in that the mileage tends to decrease during the winter months with the darkness not really conducive to running outdoors.

“I mean, I do some stuff indoors, but it’s not anywhere nearly as enjoyable as running outdoors.

“When spring comes along and it’s easier to get outdoors, I gradually increase my mileage. Although this year I’m recovering from a back injury.”

Last week was a somewhat easy one for Deb.

“But, as I said, I’m not competing against other people … for a long time my goal for a 10K race would be to try for an under nine-minute mile pace. But, in recent years, with various injuries and other things that have slowed me down, this year I would thrilled if I made it under a 10-minute pace.”

So she will soak in Saturday’s race, another chapter in this 15-year odyssey.

“It’s more about the overall experience and just the personal satisfaction to — especially as I get older — still be able to do it … is very rewarding.

“This is the race I make sure I do … I do run some other races here and there, but this is the race that I always do and part of the reason for that is because of this combined relationship with Bowdoin College and Joan Benoit Samuelson. She’s a Bowdoin grad, she’s on the Board of Trustees … she still has a very strong connection to the college and it’s her race.

“That’s why I think it’s important to a lot of local people, but also, Maine is very small state in terms of population … and yet, because of Joan Benoit’s accomplishments and connections in the professional running community, she is able to attract the kind of interest and sponsorship in this race, to bring in world-class athletes.

“So, for the state of Maine to be putting on this kind of race is just a remarkable thing. I think it’s a really signature event for this state, one that also brings in a lot of good publicity and makes people feel good. People come from all over the place to run in this race.”

Try 16 countries and 44 U.S. states!

And, what about the course, which begins in Cape Elizabeth near Crescent Beach State Park on Route 77 and ends with three climbing hills during the final approach to Fort Williams?

Not the easiest, by the way.

“It is a little hilly and there’s a steep hill near the end, which is pretty tough. You’ve already run about five and half miles at that point. I forget this very year, but you’re sort of thinking that once you get to the top of that hill that you’re done, but there’s another whole longer stretch after that so you’ve got to save some of your energy. It is kind of a hard course, but there is some shade along the way which is nice.

“Now, I may be crawling at some point, but I want to keep going as long as I can.”

GEORGE ALMASI is the Times Record sports editor. He can be reached at galmasi@timesrecord.com