PS: Hey Gig, don't forget to post a race report of Rehoboth -- I'm looking forward to reading it

Great race report - with nice photos. I did the race relay with my wife, who just read your report and said the cap looks kind of familiar, she think she might have chatted briefly with you -- the part about "calf hurting" sounds familiar. She ran faster than the pace (8:15) I suggested for her, whereas I ran slower than the one (7:15) I guessed for myself -- but I still had the enjoyment of passing people the entire race, except one guy passed me in the last mile -- after about 20sec, I got inspired and set out to catch him, so I raced around the final turn and onto the boardwalk and down the boardwalk. They had to tell the spectators to back up (as they were blocking the tangent line to the finish -- and I was going as fast as I could)--and then I had to stop hard because the chip collecting guy was way too close to the finish line for someone coming across in a a sprint. I didn't actually catch him, but I had a great time trying We were about place 50 I think. They don't have results posted in any way where you can tell which relays were coed, so we only know we were later than 5th coed relay. In the north part of the park, you pass one tower (about 20 feet off path to the left, entirely visible) coming up the hill to the campsite, and then after going back out (of campsite/relay exchange point/water stop), if you look right just as you turn left, you can see that one again -- but then you go through the woods, down the ammo bunker road, and up the hill to Fort Miles, and you pass another tower (the one open to the public) through a few trees to the left. Finally, on the way back out of the park, there is a third tower back in the sand dunes on the right, but I haven't looked to see if you can see it from the way we ran. They still have the orange cones blocking off the back part of the campsite this week -- I thought they had only blocked it off for that race.

I looked this weekend, and you can see that third tower on the mara course coming out of the park. Plus there is that fourth tower across from the ferry that I completely forgot about that is right next to the course before it came into the (north) park and after it came out. Gee, they are all around, like a conspiracy I think I tend not to notice scenery too much in a race; too focused on the race. That was my first half-mara, and a half-mara takes a LOT less out of you than a mara, I'll say. I went out with another local runner and did an easy 14mi the next day -- I wouldn't think of doing that after a mara (of course, I'm not one of those insane Maniacs).