Like everything else in 2020, the Main Street Mile was like no other year's.

A few months ago Liz Burdette, from Hanover Rec.,  and I sent dozens of emails back and forth discussing if it made sense to have the event. What would it mean in a time of social distancing, and would anybody show?  In the end we decided to put the event out there, give it parameters to be safe, and then see if anybody toes the line.

In the end we decided to run the race on its traditional course, but to allow people to run it during a week long period.  We then asked people to either self-report their finishing times, or to let us take their times from Strava.

Normally Dartmouth Triathlon co-host the event with us, which then allows us to use the Dartmouth Green for the finish area, but this year the Tri-team is every where but Hanover.  In the end Dartmouth agreed to let us finish in the traditional place on the Green if we did not make that a focal point where people would gather.  So just a line scratched in the dirt for the finish.

What about police?  Normally Liz arranges for officers to stop traffic for the race, especially where Maynard St and Wentworth St meet North Main St.  (Wentworth St. is in front of Baker Library - I didn't know its name before). They stop cars for about five to ten minutes.  But this year. . .

Given the number of runners in the past, spread over seven days, we are talking about less than a runner per hour. Even if people picked optimal hours, I expect most casual observers would not notice a rise in the number of runners.  So no police officers.

What about cheating?  One of the inherent problems with self reporting is that anyone could claim anytime.  I pointed out to Liz that with our fabulous prizes and massive winning purse, we should probably take blood samples to look for doping.  She pointed out that people will do anything for toilet paper and hand sanitizers, but we didn't have an anti-doping budget, so we just trusted people.

And then race day, or I should say race week was upon us.  In my pitch for the event I had reminded people, "It is May, the days are warming and soon the air will be thick with the smell of lilacs."  Monday was cold and damp and felt more like March then May.

Tuesday's weather was not much different.  I did some pace work at TNT, setting Thursday as my target date.  Normally the Main St. Mile is Thursday evening.

Every evening I pulled up the Strava Leaderboard, one or two people a day were running the course, which was not encouraging.

But then Thursday the weather smiled on us.  I ran at noon and could smell the first faint whiff of lilacs.  Within an hour a hand full of people coincidentally converged at the starting line - but were still able to maintain social distancing.  Saturday was also a good day.

In the end twenty-five runners ran the race. Twenty used Strava and five self reported.

I am looking forward to next year when I will actually get to see all of your performances.

[Note: The Strava segment we used turned out to be 0.99 miles.  So we report both the mile times and the segment time.]

Photos by Jim Burnett