Road diary: Meanwhile, well back in the pack . . .

Uh, well, not exactly. Here at the sun-kissed TD Banknorth Beach to Beacon 10K it's a few minutes past the official race time of 8:05 a.m., and if the Star Spangled Banner has been sung or a starting pistol fired, you can't tell from back here, about a football field back of the starting line.

Anyway, who's in a hurry? For many people I've run into this morning, this race is a happy-to-be-here, what-a-great-day, just-want-to-finish event.

For example, Ed Reagan, 53, of Portland is going the distance with a defibrillator and a recently installed artificial hip. He says he plans to ask his doctor - on Monday - if it's OK to run. Mike Reali of Falmouth is also running with an artificial hip. Which, he speculates, might short out his computer timing chip. Reali's buddy Al Butler objects that the hip, because it is lighter and causes no joint pain, giving Reali an unfair advantage.

Ahead of me a homemade, T-shirted phalanx of young womanhood - the Cape High field hockey team, member Emma Logan explains - chatters and fidgets. Nearby is ultramarathoner Mike Brooks of Danville. To my right is Bob Stein of Portland. Wait, no he isn't. Where'd your dad go, I ask 11-year-old Pete Stein.

More accurately Bob, who is running with Pete and daughter Amelia and has fund-raised $1,300 for Kids First, has gone to the woods. But now he's returned to the crowd. Then suddenly many people are clapping and cheering, and some are even jumping up and down, but nobody we can see is moving except vertically.

We all walk about four steps, then lurch to a big stop. More cheering - no idea why. Then we walk until after a full minute we reach the sign for people aiming at a 10-minute pace. We may have to be timed on a calendar at this rate. By my watch it's 3:02 when we jog across the starting line, about the time the leaders have hit the 3/4-mile mark.

Now we can hear the announcer, who indicates that the Cape High football team is just behind. Figuring no good can come of being bulldozed, I speed up, sort of, and catch up to a woman who's running in a mortarboard.

Past Crescent Beach we can smell the ocean, a lot sweeter than what we're going to be smelling not much later in this packed field, and I consider canning the beacon idea and opting for the much-closer beach.

After a 9:28 first mile here's a water stop and in orange shirts, a bigger and screechier phalanx of girls, in orange shirts. The Cape High soccer team, explains Emily Atkins. When I catch Dan Entwistle and Sam McCarthy, both mohawked, and point out that mohawks are illegal in Cape, it turns out they are also (law-breaking) residents of this fair town.

Past Mile 2 and Trundy Road, some guy emits a loud burp. Invited to repeat it for the tape recorder, he declines, but a woman volunteers. Linda Mycock of Windham is running her fifth B2B and son Joseph, 11, is alongside, in his first. I assure him it's OK to burp. "We'll do more than that," mom promises.

Near Alewive's Brook Farm, I get nearly taken down by a woman who's dropped her red headband and ducked back to get it. Then as we're almost halfway, a half-hour in, I point out to Christine Anderson of Damariscotta that the winners have been done for a couple of minutes, but she's feeling good and cares little about the winners. She does wonder about where her co-worker at Miles Memorial Hospital, Emily LeVan, might be. (Close to victory, as would appear.)

Midrace the heat has increased and more people are walking, even through the whooping crowds at Pond Cove, and also a little ways down Shore Road, where Joe Napolitano of Portland sounds regretful that he can't run shirtless, since his bib is pinned on, but he's not walking. A motorcycle cop weaves through, looking for mohawks perhaps.

Getting close to Pond Cove now and B2B multi-timer T.J. Whitcomb of Cape Elizabeth maintains that he'd be dead if it weren't for the water stops, and anyway he hasn't been the same since his wife, Patty, beat him three years ago. Patty is a couple of steps behind and looks ready to pounce again.

Just by the water Elvis Costello's "Oliver's Army" is blasting courtesy of Gary and Missy Piscopo, out front of the family cottage. After 45 minutes of cheering on runners and year after year aren't they sick of it? No, the runners keep us going, they said. And son Kyle is running. With the football team ...

Uh, gotta go. And here come those hills! Gina Whipple of Ware, N.H., is conquering one now. Up the hill backwards. Via B2B she's fund-raised $14,000 for friend Matt Albertini in his fight against cancer: "It's the one thing I could do to help."

Wait, now Karen Hunter, a social worker in the Portland schools, is running up the next hill, backwards. What is this?

Into the fort. Some people struggle on the little hill, but Carrie Smith of Old Orchard Beach attacks and conquers it.

Past Mile 6 there's a stampede to the line as the 1-hour mark ticks nearer, and then scant yards from the finish -

This is the cry of Will Darrin of Brookline, Mass., an annual B2B competitor, but previously unvictimized by bees. He's got a bright red mark on his side to go with a finisher's smile.

Of which there are many. "The WD-40 worked very well on the hip," Mike Reali says. Ed Reagan is well content with a 1:25 or so. Mike Brooks says he reached his goal - besting Gov. John Baldacci. "He wouldn't buy me a beer after the Kerrymen's Pub race, so I wanted to beat him," Brooks declared.

Pete Stein was delighted to come in around 70 minutes, he said. I asked him about Bob. "In the bathroom," said Pete.

John Rolfe of Portland is a staff writer and a road runner. He can be reached at 791-6429 or at:

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