Seashore Half Marathon to go live Oct. 4

The Seashore Half Marathon will be moved to Cape Henlopen State Park this year. Due to COVID-19, it will not be hosted at Irish Eyes or run through the City of Lewes. The complete race will be held Sunday, Oct. 4, from the parking lot at the bathhouse beginning at 8 a.m. The race will head toward Fort Miles, then go in both directions – Herring Point to Gordons Pond going south and toward Lewes heading north. Registration is open at seashorestriders.com. There will also be a virtual option, a 5K and a relay. The race will be capped at 200 participants. There will not be a post-race celebration due to COVID-19, and race information will be emailed to participants during race week.

Peet, Peet & Re-Peet

I took a pretty cool picture at practice on Tuesday. Marybeth Betts-Peet ran for the Striders when she was in middle school. Now her daughter Annie began her career with the Striders ... the first next-generation family. Pretty cool. MB is married to another Strider, Steve Peet, and I took them both to our Iowa national trip many years ago in a snowstorm. They ended up a couple (I guess I should have watched them closer).

Annie, a first-grader, has a long, fluid stride pushing off on her toes, and plenty of energy and endurance. She reminds me of a combination of Alia Marshall and Elizabeth Pratt. Annie will be a good one if she can stop talking for 45 minutes to get her training in at practice.

Indoor Track DE

With the help of Cape graduate and Clemson All-American Kai Maull, the Indoor Track DE project will be featured on nationally known MileSplit – the track & field bible of the internet for high school and college platforms. Maull, who was recently named the advisory board chairman, is connected to many big-name athletes throughout the country including Shawn Crawford, LeShon Collins, Marquis Dendy, Alison Felix, and Justin Gatlin, to name a few. Maull was recently interviewed for an upcoming feature on MileSplit along with the president and secretary. He spoke about the need of a facility in Delaware that young athletes can call their home. As it stands now, Delaware teams must travel many hours out of state to compete on an indoor track. My Cape Henlopen team travels to Snow Hill, Md.; Collegeville, Pa.; New York City; Staten Island, N.Y.; and Princess Anne, Md., during a normal season. Look for the feature on MileSplit and sign up on seashorestriders.com for the Indoor Track DE Virtual 5K that folks can take part in through Oct. 31.  

Ultraman

Jake Bamforth accomplished a feat done by very few last weekend as he completed what is called an Ultraman. The challenge began Friday with a 10K swim followed by a 94-mile bike, climbing 8,000 feet in altitude. One climb he spoke about took an hour at 5 mph to get to the top. He was a bit faster on the downhill, reaching 62 mph. Saturday was a 190-mile bike day that took 14 hours and climbed to 10,000 feet into the Rockies. Sunday was a double marathon day at 52 miles, taking 14 hours again and finishing in the dark at 9:30 p.m. “Swimming from Cape May to Cape Henlopen (14.2 miles) was a piece of cake compared to the Ultraman I just did,” said Jake. “The Ultraman not only drains you physically, but mentally as well. I felt great on Friday, but felt exhausted before I even began Saturday and Sunday.” What will be next? Hopefully nothing for a while. He needs to give his mom and dad a break.