On the morning of July 4, Mattapoisett saw its typical wave of athletes arrive, ready to run. This time was a record breaker! Even with high heats from an extreme heat advisory, 1387 racers crossed the line in the end, over 50 more racers than last year and the most the race has seen in its 55 years of running. For reference, the first race in 1971 saw 15 runners compete in the race organized by locals Bob and Doris Gardener.
Bob passed away in 2018 at the age of 84 and Doris in 2020 at the age of 87 and the race they began lives on, bigger than ever.
Again, we cannot stress enough the heat was intense with a heat index in the 90s. That being said, nearly 1400 racers crossed the line on Saturday. Of those, the first was Henry Myers, 26M, of San Diego, CA who crossed with a time of 21:03.6. 2nd was Tim Bolick, 31M, of Marion with a time of 21:12.5. 3rd was Nicholas Stathos, 26M, of Wellesley Hills with a time of 21:27.6.
For women and hot on the tail of the leading men, Abigail Hassman, 24F, of Foxboro finished first with a time of 22:16.1. In 2nd was Anna Weirich, 22F, Portola Valley, CA with a time of 25:13.7. 3rd was Mary Butler, 23F, of Brighton with a time of 26:06.2.
By Sam Bishop