The finish line

The end of the race was a special, unexpected treat. Thousands of runners, with another team of 12 arriving every 30 seconds or so, and a tremendous, friendly, joyful vibe in the air. The sun was shining, and a soft warm breeze blew in from the ocean. We hung out there for several hours.

Van 2 - who ran the last 6 legs of the race - got caught in the massive pile-up of vans eNtering the park and missed the team finish by about 30 seconds. But we were soon reunited on the warm dunes of Hampton Beach, at the end of a 4-kilometer long peninsula that sticks into the ocean north of Boston.

I expected a long, long wait for our finish line meal, but like everything reach-the-beach, it was organized with military precision. We were seated in a massive tent with heaping plates of freshly grilled chicken, scalloped potatoes, stir fried veggies, clam chowder and green salad, in a matter of minutes.

Most of the van 2 guys left soon after eating for a shower at the hotel, but Chris, birthday boy Christoph (celebrating his 50th), John and I wandered through the dunes out to the huge flat beach and onto the hard sand. Soon we were up to our thighs in the frigid Atlantic. All around us, happy teams were doing the same thing. A few had planned it well enough to have towels and bathing suits at this point, but not us.

Soon, however, the birthday boy was down to his running shorts and headed back into the salty swells. I had to join him. The cold took my breath away when I dove under, like Georgian Bay in June. Swimming in the ocean is a primal thing for me, having grown up beside the Pacific, and with a year as a 9-year-old living right on the beach in Connecticut. It all came flooding back to me as I bobbed in the waves with Christoph, who was smiling as if he couldn't have dreamed a better scenario for his birthday.

We had only t-shirts as towels when we got out. There was a warm sun, but it was after 6 pm, so I was shivering in my wet shorts by the time we found our van and drove back up to our beachside motel. A hot shower fixed that, followed by a languid couple of hours on the hotel deck, drinking beer, eating pizza, and sharing war stories with our friends from team Peace, Love and Crabs - the gang that Fergus native Ginny Kerslake and her Phillie friends had cobbled together for the relay.

By 9:30 I was happily in the sack, quickly falling into a non-REM sleep that permits no dreams of eery night-time runs, endless New Hampshire Hills, or finish line swims.