River Dogs Half Marathon

Woods Hole, MA, March 8, 2003

Polakowski and Baker Triumph at Inaugural River Dogs Half Marathon

by Courtney Bird

Adam Polakowski of West Yarmouth and Jessica Baker of Falmouth topped a field of 193 runners in the inaugural Riverdogs Half Marathon with times of 1:20:35 and 1:32:28 respectively.

In the men's race, Polakowski lead from the start, followed closely by Mike Norton of East Falmouth. Just before 8 miles, the police cruiser leading the race failed to make a turn and Polakowski followed the cruiser. Norton, stayed on course and pulled ahead of Polakowski, who realized his mistake, turned around and got back on course. Polakowski regained the lead and held it to the end, beating Norton by 24 seconds.

In the women's race, Jessica Baker held off Dede Greisbauer of Boston and Liisa Miller of Stratford, NH through the hills in the last three miles. Her margin of victory was 32 seconds over the 2nd place woman and 1:17 ahead of third.

Except for a half mile stretch of somewhat slushy roads at around the 7 mile point, running conditions were quite good, in spite of the 10" of snow that had fallen on the area two days before. It was clear and sunny with temperatures in the mid 40's.

The course consisted of a loop that started and ended in Woods Hole and took in some of the more scenic parts of Falmouth Road Race and Cape Cod Marathon courses. There are rolling hills in the first two and a half miles and the last three miles of the course, but the middle miles are flat.

The race was organized by River Dogs Athletics of Marblehead, and the proceeds benefitted the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.