There will be first-time winners on both the men’s and women’s side at Saturday’s 28th annual Beach to Beacon 10K road race in Cape Elizabeth.
None of the past champs are included in the field, which could reach as high as 8,000 runners.
Orono’s Ruth White will be looking to win top female finisher from Maine for the third time in four years but will be challenged by a number of top-flight runners.
White, who just completed her sophomore year at the University of New Hampshire, was named the America East Women’s Track and Field Scholar Athlete of the Year this past spring after finishing 22nd in the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships at the University of Oregon. That earned her an All-American honorable mention.
She finished ninth in the NCAA Division I championships her freshman year and attained second team All-American status.
In last year’s Beach to Beacon race, White covered the 6.21-mile course in 34:51 to beat Windham’s Cliodhna O’Malley by 11 seconds and Waterville’s Bethanie Brown by 15 seconds.
The trio finished 21st, 22nd and 23rd overall, respectively, among the 3,539 women in the race.
White had also won the Maine women’s division in 2023.
The 2024 Maine winner, Veronica Graziano of Falmouth, is also entered after winning the LL Bean 10K on July 4.
Karley Piers of Falmouth won the 2026 Mid-Winter Classic 10-miler in Cape Elizabeth and will be another contender. She was fifth among Maine women at the Beach to Beacon a year ago.
The top five finishers in the Maine men’s division are back and will be among the favorites.
Cumberland’s Luke Marsanskis was the top finisher a year ago with a time of 29:26 which was 17th best among the 2,947 men. However, he will be coming off an injury.
Portland native Colin Cernik was 18th at 29:40 and fellow Portland natives Aaron Willingham (30:26), Alec Troxell (30:37) and Will Geoghegan (31:02) rounded out the top five and were 21st, 23rd and 27th, overall.
Even though last year’s overall winner, Utah native Conner Mantz, isn’t returning after setting the course record (27:26), runnerup Patrick Kiprop from Kenya is back.
The multi-time All-American from the University of Arkansas posted a time of 27:36 a year ago.
On Friday, retired NASA astronaut Sunita Williams was presented with bib 608 at a race press conference to honor her 608 days in space, which included nine spacewalks totalling 62 hours and six minutes, the most by any female astronaut in history.
In 2024, she took off on what was supposed to be an eight-day test flight but technical issues resulted in her being stranded on the International Space Station for 286 days with fellow astronaut Barry Wilmore.
While in space, she became the first astronaut to run a marathon and she will run the Beach to Beacon.
The race was founded by Cape Elizabeth native Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won the first women’s Olympic marathon in 1984.