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Coffee-O Friday Night Five Road Race
Date and Time: Every Friday, rain, snow, sleet, or shine, year round, 5:30 p.m.
Race Distance: 5 miles
Walk: There is also a walking route, 2.4 miles.
Location: Town Hall Square, Main Street, Falmouth (Cape Cod, Massachusetts). The address is 59 Town Hall Square.
Course Description: A mostly flat loop (just a couple of small hills in the middle of the course) with breathtaking vistas along Vineyard Sound. During the winter you also get breathtaking views of the Pleiades and other celestial sites. The course is marked with yellow arrows on the road, and the miles are marked.
Directions: Town Hall Square is located near the west end of Main Street (Rte. 28), Falmouth, across from the Quarterdeck Restaurant. There is plenty of parking in the town hall parking lot, where the race begins and ends.
Entry Fees: None. Runners are asked to sign in before the run.
Timing: Self-timed; you record your time on the sign-in sheet.
Other Notes: During the winter, reflective gear is required. Some of the runners recommend carrying a flashlight.
Sponsor: The Coffee Obsession, which graciously donates bottled water for after the run, and sometimes hot chocolate during the winter
Organized By: The Falmouth Track Club
Race Director: Ken Gartner. Email: kj.gartner@comcast.net
Click Here to display a map of the course. You can print out this map and bring it along, if you're new to the run. After displaying the course map, use your back button to return to this page.
Course Description:
The route starts at a yellow line in front of the bowling alley in the parking lot at Town Hall Square, making a loop around the parking lot, out past the Taxi Stand onto Walker Street. Runners turn right on Walker St. Runners take a right on Beebe Acres Rd., looping around to reconnect with Walker Street where they pass the 1 mile mark. At the end of Walker Street, runners turn right on Surf Drive. Runners then turn right on Mill Road, passing the 2 mile mark along the way. At the end of Mill Road runners turn left onto Woods Hole Road, running for a few yards on the sidewalk and crossing the Shining Sea Bike Path, and almost immediately turn left again onto Elm Road, where the only hills on the course are located (and they are small).
Runners turn right onto Quonset Road, which contains the 3 mile mark in its short loop, and runners come back out onto Elm Road where they take a right. At the end of Elm Road, with Martha's Vineyard visible directly ahead, runners turn left onto Surf Drive, passing Salt Pond and an active osprey nest on the left. Runners continue along Surf Drive, passing the 4 mile mark, until they take a left onto Walker Street. They continue up Walker Street to the Taxi Stand and take a left to re-enter Town Hall Square and make the same loop around the parking lot to the yellow line that started the race.
Visit the Coffee-O's website
Links to Results, 2001 through the present
Searchable Data Base of runners since 1997 through (more or less) the present
In 1997 longstanding club member Ken Gartner borrowed (and improved on) an idea from the Cape Cod Athletic Club, who had been holding a fun run on Friday evenings in Hyannis, and laid out a 5-mile course starting at Town Hall Square on Main Street in Falmouth. Virtually without exception, every Friday since then, at 5:30 sharp, FTC and other runners have left Town Hall Square in the Friday Night Coffee-O Five Miler. The numbers swell in the summer months as summer visitors join the year-round diehards. There is no fee and the runners time themselves, and you will find results in the Falmouth Enterprise. In the winter the run continues, with reflective clothing being a requirement.