Just woke up from my post-Road Race coma. I had totally planned on adding the Cape Cod Stampede, the rodeo that’s in town, to the agenda for the day, and actually headed over there for an hour, but all that sun and the early wake-up call did me in. I fell asleep sometime around 3 and was out of it until about 6. Between the kids’ yelps throughout the afternoon I noticed that the Red Sox had found a way to drop another one.
It’s funny with the Road Race, I dread it every year, and yet on FRR Day I always find myself enjoying the festivities. Maybe it’s the death-defying aspects of riding on the back of that truck, which we all know can’t be all that safe.
The race today was actually quite entertaining. Last year we got a blowout, which was fun because the winner was actually blowing kisses to the crowd for the final mile and a half. This year there was no time for kiss-blowing because the top two contenders were step-for-step with another the whole way.
The victor, whose name I have not yet learned to spell (I’m writing the story in the morning), was awesome. I love cocky athletes after a win, because they always make me laugh, and this guy was cocky in a Pedroia-like way.
I asked him if he was worried down the stretch and he said, “No, I know I win.”
Too funny. If he was a jerk about it you’d bristle, but he’s one of those dudes with an infectious smile and good nature and you couldn’t help but chuckle and smile yourself.
I also talked to Lucia Carroll, one of the FRR Directors, after the race about my biggest problem covering the race, the fact that the elite runners have their names on their bibs rather than numbers. You see, the elite guys are mostly from African countries, and their names tend to be difficult to pronounce and also long. When taking notes on the back of a death mobile that is swiftly moving along the streets of Falmouth it was easier when you could just write numbers down.
She said that she agreed with me, but the reasoning behind switching to names on the front made sense. It seems that road racing across the United States has become dominated from coast to coast by African runners. Those filling the roads to cheer on the athletes, though, are Americans and as a people we like to cheer for individuals with names, and personalities. By putting the names on the bibs, rather than numbers, race directors from the US running circuit feel that they are able to better personalize these runners, moving them from being just another number that looks similar to the number running beside them and giving them a more individual status.
It’s a little thing, but it makes sense. The hardest part about making road racing something that Joe Regular Guy can get behind is that the sport itself is not something that he sees much of. ESPN does not give your road racing highlights. Sports Illustrated rarely covers it either, and you can forget about the major networks.
The coverage, and the interest, just isn’t there for most people, so these athletes sweep into town, do their thing, and then leave in about the same amount of time it takes them to get from Woods Hole to Falmouth.
How do you generate honest-to-goodness interest from average people in the elite racers when they aren’t recognizable and the names are constantly changing? I’m not sure what the answer is to that.
The only way that makes sense to me would be to have an off-season program where some of the elites come to town to do a meet-and-greet with the townspeople. The problem with that, though, is that it is very expensive to get these guys in from Ethiopia and Kenya to take grip-and-grin photos and glad hand.
If people got to know the characters they might be a little more interested in the outcome.
Honestly, though, it probably doesn’t matter. The Falmouth Road Race is more about the experience and the annual traditions that go along with it. Families line the streets every year because that’s what they do on Road Race day. They cheer for the runners, especially the regular guys that they may or may not know, and then go and enjoy a day at the beach, a barbecue and a few adult beverages.
I guess the Road Race is more about another “holiday” on the calendar more than anything. It’s something that you set the year by. The summer around here begins with Memorial Day, hits its high mark on July 4, is coming to a close at the Road Race and ends on Labor Day.
Sorry to remind you, the summer just entered the fourth quarter.
The views and opinions in the Enterprise blogs are those of the author and are not neccessarily shared by Falmouth Publishing.
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