By Brent Manley

Marathons come in all varieties, from the gargantuan New York and Chicago Marathons to the tiny Turtle Marathon in Roswell NM -- from the breathtakingly beautiful Big Sur Marathon to the backroads Arkansas Marathon, Malvern to Benton. To the list of offbeat races, allow me to add the interestingly unique marathon in Wakefield MA.
As pretty much a lark, I entered this contest not long after a disappointing performance in the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati in May.
Actually, the Wakefield marathon is part of a larger event - the 24-Hour Around the Lake Relay/Marathon/Ultra. The event, the fifth annual, is a small one: there were six relay teams (six to eight members), 28 male and six female ultra runners and eight women and 21 men in the marathon.
In the ultra and the relay, individuals and teams ran as much as they could in the 24-hour period which began at 7 p.m. on Friday night, Aug. 3, inWakefield, about 15 miles north of Boston. The 2001 relay team winners logged 203.2 miles in just short of 24 hours (23:53:43). The men’s ultra winner added 117.9 miles to his training log in 23:47, and the women’s winner recorded 111.5 miles in 23:10.
All competitors ran a course around Lake Quannapowitt inWakefield. Marathon runners had to make about eight and one-third trips around the lake.
In case you are wondering whether I had lost my mind in choosing this race, my reasons were several: (1) I had originally planned to run the marathon in Juneau AK which is scheduled for the same weekend, but I could not get off work long enough for Donna, my wife, and I to enjoy such a long trip; (2) we have friends in the Boston area and we wanted to visit them; (3) some of Donna’s business associates in the Boston area got us tickets to a Red Sox game the day after the marathon; (4) evenings in New England, even in the summer, are usually pleasant.
We landed in Boston about 1 p.m., rented a car and got directions to Wakefield. We pulled into the Best Western Lord Wakefield about 2:30 p.m., checked in and went for a quick lunch in Wakefield. Driving through the city center was like a trip to the past: a town square, mom-and-pop store fronts everywhere. No big chains in sight.
Back at the hotel, I went to pick up my race packet. The organizers - the Somerville Road Runners - had set up a tent in the hotel parking lot. It was also to be the checkpoint for runners as they circled the lake.
While I was preparing for the 7 p.m. start in the hotel room, I looked out the window. It was raining. Far from disappointed, I was happy. The temperature was in the 80s when we arrived in Boston and I was fearful I would be running in hot, humid conditions - which always do me in.
I showed up for the start about 20 minutes early wearing a Memphis Runners singlet, and two men immediately expressed their extreme disappointment that the Memphis Marathon for 2001 had been canceled. Both had been planning to run it.
One of them was Raymond Scharenbrock of South Milwaukee WI. He had been planning to add Tennessee to his list of marathon states. Incredibly, the 68-year-old was three states from completing marathons in 50 states for the third time. Undeterred, he said he will do the Jackson TN marathon in November.
To get the race started, marathon competitors were loaded into a small moving van and taken to a point .92 miles from the start. Marathon runners had to make eight loops around the lake (3.16 miles each) and the extra distance was added to assure that the marathon course (which is certified) was exactly 26.2 miles.
I was in the first of two loads of marathon runners to be taken out. We were dropped off on the street - the course includes a lot of sidewalk - in front of a small business office. Just as we gathered under a couple of trees while the van went for the second load, the sky opened up - and I mean opened up.
The rain, which had been a mere drizzle minutes before, was a torrent. Wind nearly knocked us, and at times it seemed the rain was coming at us sideways.
Back at the start, race organizers huddled under the tent as the water rose. Gatorade coolers were floating in the rivers that suddenly appeared. A box of registration packets was rescued on its watery way to the lake. Everyone was standing in water well above their ankles, and the clock was in danger, too. An extension cord for the clock was under way.
Donna, observing all this, innocently asked: “Are you still going to have the race?”
Said Dan Solomon, one of the organizers: “We are runners, not tissue paper!”
Soloman made it back with the second truck full of marathoners and he did the honors for the start, literally shouting to be heard over the booming thunder and the din of the rain splashing noisily everywhere.
Although we had been standing under two or three very large trees, we were all soaked to the skin before we took our first step.
The rain came down in buckets for the first three hours of my race, and I found myself in deep, unavoidable puddles at least two dozen times before I was through.
In the parking lot of the hotel, for example, all runners had to go through a chute so that their laps could be counted. Well, the chute was in a low point in the parking lot, so I had to practically swim through each time I went by. My shoes were soaked, of course, and many people have asked if I had problems with blisters. Believe it or not, I had none - nothing even close. I attribute this remarkable circumstance to the Smartwool brand of socks I was wearing.
The course was basically run on sidewalks along streets that circled the lake. At one point, an asphalt path led runners through a tree-lined area in a park adjacent to the lake, but mostly runners made their way where pedestrians usually tread. About one-third of the sidewalks were concrete. This was rough going, but when traffic thinned out and some of the water from the rain had drained, it was possible to run on the asphalt in the street.
There was one water station on the course, and it was right after the counting chute. At some points during the night, the Gatorade - sitting in open cups -- was pretty watered down from all the rain, but there were plenty of Clif Shot gel packs available and always plenty of liquid.
Early in the race, I ran alongside a local runner, one Steve Pepe, a friendly 44-year-old in training for a marathon in Montreal. He intended to go slow, which was my pace. He explained to me that in 1999, he ran six of the eight loops around the lake, went to bed and did the final two loops when he got up the next day. “I had myself an 18-hour marathon,” he said proudly.
About 10 p.m., as I approached the water table, a man approached and asked if he could run with me for a bit. It turned out he was a marathon runner but he was just starting and wasn’t sure about the course. He explained that he had promised his family he would not run while there was lightning (there was some during the three hours of the downpour). By the time he entered the race, the rain had slowed to a drizzle again. There was no way the new marathoner could be taken to the starting point the rest of us had used, so he had to run nine loops around the lake.
All night long, I was passed repeatedly by the relay runners. I could tell who they were because each carried a paint stirrer from Home Depot.
The rain made an unusual race a bit more challenging for some, but it actually helped me. I stayed cool and well hydrated and felt pretty good by the time I finished (after midnight). There was a table with a virtual feast for the runners, but I didn’t stay long. We were due at Fenway Park the next day for an afternoon game, so I had to try to get to sleep. I can tell you, it’s weird trying to nod off 90 minutes after finishing a marathon, even a very slow one.
When we got up to leave for Boston the next day and swung through the parking lot in the car, we could see the relay and ultra runners still chugging by - and the bleary-eyed volunteers under the tent still counting and laps and yelling out numbers.
Race director Larry Horlick said he got about two hours’ sleep the whole night. Despite the difficult conditions - the rain didn’t make the volunteers’ jobs any easier - everyone was friendly and supportive.
If you’re looking for something a bit different in a marathon or ultra, I would recommend the 24-Hour Around the Lake race. To be on the safe side, of course, don’t forget the scuba gear (just kidding).