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As usual on the Fourth of July, runners from all over the state have a plethora of races to head to from Brewer to York.
The road racing circuit on Monday includes stops in Brewer, Freeport, Bridgton, Winthrop, York and Sebec.
Many local runners will head to the 25th annual Walter Hunt Memorial 3,000-meter race, also known as “Maine’s Fastest Road Race.”
The race is the sixth in the Tradewinds Marketplace Sub 5 race series.
Nearly 400 runners – 397 to be exact, finished the 1.86-mile jaunt down Brewer’s Wilson Street to Pickering Square in Bangor a year ago, with Mike Bunker and Cassie Hintz winning their respective divisions.
The race starts on Wilson Street in Brewer, across from Dunkin’ Donuts, follows a blistering fast downhill on Wilson and across the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge.
The Chamberlain bridge is probably the toughest part of the course, as it flattens out here and the wind can blow coming off the river.
After crossing the bridge, runners hang a right onto Main Street in Bangor, where they encounter another downhill, this time a long, gradual slope about 200-300 meters long.
Eventually, the course goes up a small hill and a right turn onto Exchange Street before finishing at the end of the Kenduskeag Stream Footbridge in Pickering Square.
According to 15th-year race director David Torrey, however, some runners tend to take the fast first mile for granted.
“It seems every year we get a couple of lead runners that serve as rabbit[s] and really go out hard,” he said Tuesday.
The race is not only popular with Maine’s big-name road runners but plenty of young runners who enjoy the thrill of running a short distance in front of the parade throng.
“A lot of kids really like to be in it,” Torrey said. “It’s a good, short distance so many kids do it.”
Awards will be handed out to the top three male and female finishers in each age group with the winner each getting apple pie, Torrey said.
“It’s a combination of the fast course, short distance and spectators” that motivate runners to return each year, Torrey added.
The first overall male and female finishers also have their names and times engraved on a plaque which hangs in the Dead River office on Broadway in Bangor.
“Dead River has been a [main race sponsor] since the beginning [first annual race in 1980],” Torrey said.
Torrey said the most rewarding thing for him is to see throngs of families and friends not only in the race, but in the crowd.
“Just being able to see all the families that are there, all the young runners, it’s a special treat for me,” he said. “It’s quite a sight [seeing the runners come down Wilson Street.]”
Bunker and Hintz are expected to be back this year and the men’s race will be a thrash. Bunker outdistanced Clayton Conrad of North Yarmouth a year ago, winning in 8 minutes, 53 seconds. Phil LeBreton of Bangor and Judson Cake of Bar Harbor, who won the Sugarloaf Marathon in May, could be in the mix as well.
Torrey said that Bunker, a University of Southern Maine standout, is preregistered. He won the Tour du Lac 10-mile race in Bucksport last Saturday.
Stillwater’s Hintz was 14th overall in last year’s race with a mark of 9:43.
Course records are 8:10 for the men, set by Tim Wakeland in 1987 and matched by Gerry Clapper in 1988. The women’s standard is 9:28, set by Wendy Delan in 1988.
The first mile has been run as fast as 4:07 as well.
Registration gets under way at 8:30 a.m. at the Brewer Auditorium with the race going off at 10:45, 15 minutes before the start of the 4th of July parade. The first 250 runners to register get a T-shirt.
Other races on Monday include the L.L. Bean 10K in Freeport at 7:30 a.m., “Four on the 4th” races in both Bridgton and York, each starting at 8 a.m. as well as the Sebec Village 5K at 8 and the Friends on the Fourth 5K in Winthrop, also at 8
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