Here is Holly's report from the 2015 Cape Cod Marathon with video at the end of the post:
Time to knock off Massachusetts from the 50 State Map. Most everyone I tell about running a marathon in every state asks if I have done Boston. I then tell them no because I am too slow. I decided to do another marathon for Massachusetts and hold out hope that by some miracle I’ll get faster and run Boston someday. Cape Cod seemed like a perfect race. It fit my schedule and I had never been to Cape Cod. Dave had as a kid, but Falmouth looked like a cute town to spend the weekend.
We got in to town Friday night and had a great time in Falmouth. We had great food at Bear in Boots and fun listening to live music at Liam McGuire's. The next day we hit the expo. The expo was small but nice. We got some seriously discounted running clothes and I checked in at the 50 States Marathon Club table. We spent the rest of the day exploring the Cape and had a great Italian dinner.
My friend from Team All Ears, Steven decided to join me for the marathon and it was great to have the company. Dave and I stayed at the Captain’s Manor Inn and it was perfect for the race since it was right across from the start/finish area so very easy for race day.
We lucked out on race day. The weather was perfect, although a bit windy along the coast, but we weren’t by the water for too many miles. The course was challenging for sure. It was fairly flat for the first half but the second half was quite hilly. It would have been nice to have that switched around. Steven and I did a great job of keeping to our pace for the first 20 miles or so but then we started to get a bit tired of the hills and started walking up and running down. It worked well.
Dave did a great job of chasing as always. I was starving because once again it was a late start race, 8:30. I asked for chips and he came through by driving up to a private country club and walking right in. He is amazing. The course scenery was great. We ran along the coast by a lighthouse, through Woods Hole, through beautiful fall colors and even by a cranberry bogs! That was a first for me and it was cool to see them in person.
We finally got to the end of the race and got a really nice medal. The after race food was great, even for us back of the packers. They had hot clam chowder, cider doughnuts, cranberry juice and popcorn. It was all perfect and very yummy. This race was really a fun one due to things to do in town, the course - minus the hills, and the great race organization. I would definitely do this one again.
Dave's Comments
Finding lodging so close to the race start/finish and town made things so much easier. Once we arrived to town Friday night, we parked the car and took a quick walk to dinner. The two establishments we visited that night (Bear in Boots and Liam McGuire's) had nice craft beer selections. Dinner at Bear was excellent and the band had drawn most of town into Liam's that night.
The next morning we drove by a lighthouse and along the coast before Holly took me to Woods Hole - a place I never heard of. When she was younger a dream job for her was to do marine work out of this place. It was fun to see her excited about it. The town parking runs on coin meters and early morning we could not find change easily. The post office would not break a dollar for me so we each bought a stamp to get a total of four quarters. We saw some exhibits in the museum about the artic, deep sea exploration, and the Titanic. After the museum and exploring shops we headed to Sandwich where we heard we could see some glass blowing. The cute little town hosts America's oldest glas shop and a glass museum. The glass shop did not have any demos going on so we browsed the high priced items for a few minutes before leaving. We had lunch at Dan'l Webster Inn (ok you only gain one character when shortening Daniel to Dan'l. Just write it out.) which was very good.
Dinner was at La Cucina Sul Mare along with every other person in town. The place was packed! They didn't take ressies for small groups so the hostess stand was mobbed all night. We let go our wait list table when we finally landed some bar seats. The food was excellent!
The race course overall was fairly residential with some views of the water and an occasional a cranberry bog. There weren't too many snack stops available along the way but I did find a great country market for coffee and a giant whoopie pie at mile 14. During the race I was egging Steven and Holly on to pass a woman dressed as the Gorton's Fisherman. Thankfully that event occurred.
When the race ended we had lunch in town at The Quarterdeck. Lobster scampi and lobster rolls! Steven departed for home and we browsed the shops and spent a few hours in Liam's drinking some more New England beers and talking to runners. We headed back into Sul Mare when we saw they had a band and ordered a rigatoni vodka pizza. Incredible. Afterwards we stopped in Anejo because I heard they had nice margaritas. They did have a nice drink, but it came in a quart-sized glass.
The next day we headed to Boston (such a hard town to drive in) and hit up Harpoon Brewery. We sampled a few beers and found their IPA tolerable. We had a giant pretzel before taking a short walk to Legal Seafood. I was struggling with my lunch decision until I found out they did lobster rolls hot with butter instead of mayo. Sign me up!
Overall another great trip. Here' the video:
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