Beach to Beacon: Aug. 2, 2008

The 11th running of the TD Banknorth Beach to Beacon 10K road race Saturday morning turned out to be a foggy affair, with a pair of Kenyans winning the overall titles, two new champions being crowned in the Maine division and one state icon wrapping another in a larger-than-life embrace. In the absence of sunshine, […]

In the absence of sunshine, a record field of 5,258 from 14 countries and 41 states completed the 6.2-mile course from Bowery Beach Road near Crescent Beach to Portland Head Light, specially decorated for the occasion. More than $60,000 in prize money was awarded.

Edward Muge of Kenya twice came from behind within the gates of Fort Williams Park to win the overall title in 27 minutes, 52.4 seconds, beating Ethiopia’s Maregu Zewdie for the second week in a row.

Zewdie, who pulled up two blocks from the finish in last weekend’s Quad-City Times Bix 7-Miler in Iowa after mistakenly thinking he had beaten Muge, could not hold off the 25-year-old Kenyan over the final 200 meters Saturday morning and finished sixth-tenths of a second behind.

The victory was worth $10,000 to Muge, but he wasn’t the biggest winner Saturday. Fellow Kenyan Edith Masai, who started running seriously at age 32, not only won the women’s race by more than seven seconds in 31:55.6 to claim $10,000 of her own, she also collected another grand for winning the masters category.

The other record that fell in Saturday’s fog was the oldest one on the books. Kristin Barry, 34, of Scarborough more than made up for a disappointing performance at the U.S. Olympic Women’s Marathon Trials in April by winning the Maine women’s race in 34:37.1, eclipsing by nearly 20 seconds the standard set by Julia Kirtland (34:56) in the inaugural edition of this race in 1998.

On the Maine men’s side, 22-year-old Ben True of North Yarmouth continued a youthful trend started five years ago by Eric Giddings of South Portland and continued in recent years by Portland’s Donny Drake and Ayalew Taye. A graduate of Greely High and a senior at Dartmouth College (which happens to be Barry’s alma mater), True cruised to victory in 31:08.8, well ahead of runner-up Judson Cake of Bar Harbor (31:48.2).