The 2020 Mattapoisett Road Race on the Fourth of July was supposed to be a bigger celebration than usual, as this year would have marked the 50th running of the race. But now Trevor Wysong and Kim Bolick will remain the reigning champions for another year with the race being postponed until 2021.
“With how unsure things are right now, I’m not even sure that I could (push the race) to the fall,” race director Bill Tilden said. “And it’s always been a huge Fourth of July gathering. People come in from all over to visit families and have family reunions. You get to earn those burgers and beers that you’re going to have later in the afternoon. It’d be completely different if we tried to do it in the fall. So, let’s just bump it off, and let’s make next year’s even bigger and better.”
With runners pulling out of the race early since Massachusetts shut down, Tilden and others involved in the race felt it was time to decide on this year’s running. From the start of the statewide shutdown and based on the rules Governor Charlie Baker established, the Mattapoisett Road Race committee was preparing to put off the event this year.
“We thought that there was a chance that nothing would be opened up in time, especially when you’re allowed to maybe have 10 people in a building,” Tilden said. “And I’m going to have over 1,000 people standing on a starting line and then a couple thousand fans littered across the course. There’s no way to do the separation there, and I can’t be there to police people to say, ‘Hey, please stay six feet apart.’”
With the postponement, Daniel Briand will have to find something else to do on the holiday for the first time in a long time. He participated in the Mattapoisett Road Race longer than he resided in the town. In fact, Briand is the only runner to ever compete in the event each of the 49 times it’s been held, and he was set to run it again this year.
“It’s disappointing, obviously,” he said about the postponement of the event. “There was no difficulty to make the decision. We get over 1,000 runners and where it runs down through the town of Mattapoisett there’s a lot of spectators. So I’m sure there’s a couple thousand people down there on the Fourth of July’s so, obviously, that’s not something we’re going to be doing with social distancing anytime soon. So it was disappointing but not unexpected, that’s for sure. Certainly (it was) the right thing to do to call off, unfortunately.”
Another group impacted by the postponement of the 50th running is Old Rochester Regional High School’s Class of 2020. Last year, the Mattapoisett Road Race provided ORR’s senior class with over $20,000 in stipends — which is a big part of why Tilden and company are still putting something together for the community.
“We’re going to do a virtual run. I’m not a huge fan of a virtual race,” he said. “Everybody is running on a different course, different humidity or temperature… There’s a lot of people out there that don’t have fancy watches that can give me a printout of results and all that stuff. We just want people to get out there and do a five-mile run the week before the Fourth. We’re trying to do (the virtual race) from June 26 to July 2, and we just ask people to send us a photo of you out on this run that we’ll (upload) onto the website on July 4 — like we were there virtually. Everybody had already done the run, but we’re just putting their pictures up on our website just to thank them for really sponsoring — the money that doesn’t go back to the race (but) goes to our seniors that are graduating this year. And this class has missed out on enough already.”
The registration donation fee for the virtual race is $25. Runners can also purchase a Mattapoisett Road Race t-shirt for $10, but they have to sign up by June 1 in order to do so.
Sports Roundup
By Nick Friar