By David Harry

Staff Writer

For more than 90 minutes after Craig Blanchette became the first racer to cross the finish line at the TD Bank Beach to Beacon 10k Road Race last Saturday in his wheelchair, men, women and children to streamed across the finish line in Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth.

Race organizers said more than 5,700 runners, walkers and wheelchair riders competed in the 6.2-mile race that capped a week of events before the race.

On a day of sea breezes and cloud cover, elite and local racers competed for prizes and bragging rights at what often seemed to be an extended family reunion of runners.

Ethiopian Gebre Gebremariam ended Kenyan Ed Muge’s two-year reign as men’s champion 27 minutes, 40.4 seconds, and Kenyan Lileth Chepkurui shattered the women’s course record by more than 26 seconds with a time of 30:59.4.

The two led a field of elite runners that organizer Larry Barthlow praised for its depth. Race founder Joan Benoit Samuelson said “a spectacular field of Maine runners had gathered for bragging rights.”

Included in the field was Scarborough resident Kristin Barry, 36, first among Maine women this year and 10th overall among women runners finishing at 34:34.9. Barry approached the finish line with Falmouth resident and 2009 Maine women’s champion Sheri McCarthy-Piers, 39, just behind her.

“I yelled to her ‘c’mon,’” Barry said, and the two crossed the line hand-in-hand with Barry finishing .3 seconds ahead of Piers.

Scarborough resident Jeanne Hackett, 51, was first in the bracket for women older than 50 with a finishing time of 39:47.8.

Yarmouth resident Patrick Tarpy ran the course in 29:27.6 to finish first among Maine men, and led an in-state field of more than 5,200 racers. The field was comprised of racers from 41 states and 17 countries, said Samuelson, a Cape Elizabeth native and winner of a gold medal i in the 1984 Olympics women’s marathon. 

One runner who particularly delighted and surprised by her finish was Christine Snow-Reaser, the 44-year-old Dayton resident who was Maine women’s champion in 2001 and 2002.

Reaser learned about 30 minutes after crossing the finish line that her time of 39:18.2 had won the women’s master class of runners between ages 40 and 49.

She said had been running poorly this summer but felt stronger over the last couple weeks.

“I just decided to go strong and hard,” she said of her race strategy.

The scene at the runner’s expo last week at Cape Elizabeth High School was similar to the mass of runners at the finish line as race registrants arrived to get bib numbers and walk through displays of shoes, running gear and apparel and visit booths set up by local nonprofit agencies.

The two-day expo is part of the growth of the race experience, which began with 3,000 racers in 1998. Samuelson credited race organizer Marie Adams for the expo’s success.

Cumberland resident Michelle Cook arrived to get her bib and a free T-shirt with her son, Maddox, tucked into his stroller. Last year he ran with her – Cook said she gave birth to him two weeks after the race.

Cook, who was on her eighth or ninth race, said she ran throughout her pregnancy last year and was not going to miss the 13th Beach to Beacon.

“It is a well-organized race with a beautiful course,” Cook said.

The allure of the race drew Scarborough residents Steve and Karen Rand – for his eighth and her first run. She said she ran her first 5K on Peaks Island last month and enjoyed it.

I finished and I didn’t have to walk,” she said.

Mandy Collins, who recently moved to Cape Elizabeth from Seattle with her family, said a tip from friends got her a slot as one of 7,000 runners.

“They told me to be online by 8 a.m.,” she said. Dave Weatherbie, the race president, said the field was filled in 30 minutes during online registration March 15 because many people have realized they can run the course.

“The walls of intimidation have crumbled,” he said.

As they gathered Friday at Inn by the Sea, running legends greeted one other as old friends and talked about the allure of the race.

“I like the point-to-point nature, and it is like the Tour de France when you run up the path,” said Bill Rogers, a four-time winner of the Boston and New York marathons. “I run on emotion and I love the crowds.”

Andrew Lemoncello, a Scotland native, said running the race is an essential part of his developing professional career because of the quality of competition and course.

“I have heard great things about it. You have to run it,” he said.

Muge, who said he trains in the mountains of Kenya, likes the course, the coast and $10,000 first-place prize.

Muge was initially part of a breakaway pack of elite runners who bolted from the field. After a 4:30 pace in the first mile, leaders logged a 4:38 second mile, which may have helped preserve the course record of 27:27:7 set in 2003 by Kenyan Gilbert Okari.

Blanchette, the resident of Battle Ground, Wash., who rolled over the course for the first time this year, said afterward the course “is one of my favorites, kind of like a roller coaster.”

Even then, said Blanchette, he had little time to enjoy the view as he finished in 24:12.

“When you are racing, the view is smooth pavement, and there was plenty of that,” he said.