The Seacoast Half Marathon

Sunday, November 13, 2016 · Mike Davis

Good morning.

Shortly the Seacoast Half Marathon will begin and when the last determined runner crosses the finish line, it will mark the unofficial end to the race season. Sure, there will be other races and a whole lot of “Turkey Trots” on Thanksgiving, but around the Seacoast the Seacoast Half is the Super Bowl of the racing season. I certainly have a lot of great memories tied to the Seacoast Half as it was my first half marathon as a runner along with my wife. In fact, it was the beginning our love affair with running. My wife Kathy had suggested that we join the “Runners Alley” half marathon training group and despite my reservations about finishing, we joined. The training group so became a huge part of our life and quickly we had quite a few more friends. Even to this day we have strong friendships with many from that first group.

Diane Smith was our training group leader and she was certainly an inspirational leader and full of life! The funny thing was that the group consisted of 20 something woman one guy. Yeah I would at times be out front of everyone and one time someone driving by stopped and said: “Do you know you have a pack of woman chasing you?”. Funny. The training was awesome and both Kathy and I made it 13.1 miles on race day. This group so enjoyed each other and the support was amazing. Diane deserved so much credit for her positive and fun approach to each milestone that we accomplished along the way.

My memory is not totally clear but I believe the next year, I was away and Kathy again joined the “Runners Alley” training group and crossed the finish line under 2 hours! After that we ran multiple half marathons and our life had become centered around the running community.

In 2009 Runners Alley owner Jeanine Sylvester asked me if I would be interested in leading the RA half training group and I accepted. It was a lot of fun and quickly piqued my interest in being a running coach. It did not take long for Kathy to put her immense talents to work and she too became a running coach and eventually we would coach multiple training groups together. I was the loud coach while she was the “Diane Smith” of our training groups. Together we helped multiple groups of people get to the finish of the “Seacoast Half Marathon” and along the way we continued to add to our running community of friends. It was so rewarding to witness many cross the finish line for the first time completing 13.1 miles.

Eventually all of this led to “No Finish Line Running” and both Kathy and I had become experienced running coaches, as well as “Road Runners Club of America” certified running coaches. Surprisingly I have only run the “Seacoast Half” that one time in November of 2007. Working with groups meant riding a bike on race day and trying to be everywhere on the course to see every runner. That part was a lot of fun however; it was a bit bittersweet because of missing out on running one of the most scenic races anywhere.

Today I have no doubt that a lot of our friends will be running the half and it is so cool to know that we were a part of helping many or starting out with quite a few. Running has certainly been huge in our lives and we both can trace it back to that “Portsmouth Runners Alley” training group back in 2007.

If you ran the half today, I hope you had the time of your life. If you did not, I hope you do some day.

Have a great week!

God Bless!

Mike