Newburyport Half Marathon & Relay

This race is located in Newburyport, MA which is a coastal town by the NH/MA border. This race is now produced by Millennium Running out of NH who took it over sometime after the pandemic. Millennium Running taking over MA races is a great thing as Millennium Running produces some of the best and most back of the pack friendly races in New England. This is a very convenient race for me about 30 minutes from where I live. There is the option for packet pick-up at the store the day before or at the race on race day morning. The store is in Bedford, NH and is not that close to Newburyport and race day packet pick-up was easy so I’d only get it early if you are already in the Bedford/Manchester, NH area Saturday. I actually was there for the Trick-or-Trot but had something I needed to be home for right after so opted for race day packet pick-up. Parking is a bit tight in Newburyport. I knew this from the Yankee Homecoming Race this summer and arrived a little after 8am. The race starts at 9:15. This was perfect time to arrive and I was able to easily find street parking a few blocks away but the parking seemed to get tight about 15 minutes later. I had just the right amount of time to pick up my packet, bring it back to my car, go back to race start, use porta porta and warm-up a bit. Packet pick-up was easy you get a useful email with your bib number. Packet also included a nice sweatshirt and a drawstring bag. Production was very good but a few things could have been a bit better. I think they will likely get fixed as Millennium produces this event more times. One was the porta potty lines were a bit long but that’s a problem at most races. The other was the starting corral was a bit tight. There was one wave and they had us line up by predicting pace. There was over 1000 runners and I think splitting into a couple waves and having a longer staging area may have made it a bit smoother. I thought the course was okay. I will start with the positives it was a very fast course. It’s one of those courses which isn’t flat but also doesn’t have real hills. Just inclines, declines and some very gentle baby hills. This is the kind of course I am fastest at and I felt great running it. The scenery for the course was a bit underwhelming. Newburyport is such a charming coastal town and the Yankee Homecoming Race I did here while it was an awful experience for the back of the pack it was so scenic going past coastal views and the cute downtown area and this course was much more boring in comparison. The first few miles are through quiet neighborhoods, then through a scenic forest loop which did have beautiful fall foliage, then you went through a business park which was very unscenic and then about a mile on a paved trail. The only part by water was the start/finish area. What I also didn’t like about the course is the roads were open though since it was all quiet streets and there were plenty of course marshals it never felt unsafe. I believe this is the reason for the less scenic course. I assume based on how tight the time cutoffs for the Yankee Homecoming race were, the town is very strict about closing roads so for this race they chose a course to be as safe as possible to run with an open course to allow for longer time limits as opposed to a more scenic course with more traffic to navigate. I’d rather have a safe race with a long time limit so I get it but I’d also rather run in a town that welcomes runners and allows us to see the best sights of their town. Since the course was rather remote there were not a ton of spectators though I appreciated the ones there. Aid stations were good but I didn’t think there was quite enough. All had water and gatorade and one had clif blocks. At one point you went over 3 miles without an aid station. I carried water but had some cramping since I needed electrolytes by the time I got to that aid station. Course was very easy to follow and there were lots of participants so I was always running near people. As I said I was very fast. I have been struggling all summer and haven’t been able to run a sub 3 hour half since May but today I was able to shave about 15 minutes off my fastest time this fall and ran my fastest half this year at a bit over 2:50. There was perfect weather the first 10 miles which helped though it rained the last 3 miles. Finish area has a nice finish arch and you get the medal which is a really nice, anchor medal. There was pizza and the usual snacks at the end. Plenty of pizza even being closer to the back but for once I wasn’t one of the last runners. Overall I thought this was a solid race. It was well produced, a fast course and had nice swag. While I wouldn’t say the scenery was bad, it just felt kind of generic like I could be running anywhere in New England and I wish the race went though some of the more charming and unique areas of Newburyport. Overall I’d definitely recommend this race to locals. For 50 staters I’d say it’s a solid option and it’s probably the best race I’ve done in MA so far but there may be better choices.