Race History

Leonard, the irrepressible and beloved “T.L.,” was into running before running was in, and if not for his fantastical dream on a late-summer day in 1972 all this all might never have happened. Who knew then where those roads would lead.

Now following its 50th running in 2022, the Falmouth Road Race has grown gracefully into one of the signature events in the world of distance running. Indeed, it’s not a marathon – officially measuring seven miles – but Falmouth is on a very short list of the best races in the country.

Falmouth’s roll call of champions reads like a Who’s Who in the sport. The best names in the game have won here, including Hall of Famers, Olympic gold medalists and world champions. And all because Tommy Leonard’s dream came true.

In September of 1972 Tommy was working as a bartender at the Brothers 4. The Summer Games were under way in Munich, Germany and Leonard, who had often run the Boston Marathon, was enthralled watching on television as Frank Shorter compete in the Olympic marathon.

Soon the front door of the Kidd swung open. Carroll raised a starter’s track pistol and shouted, “Ready, set, go!” The first Falmouth Road Race was off, the runners sloshing toward the finish in Falmouth Heights. David Duba, a Central Michigan University student vacationing on the Cape, was in the field. He ran cross country and track in school and learned of the race when he picked up a hitchhiker in town. Duba is now forever etched into the annals of Falmouth as the first champion, along with Jenny Taylor of Cambridge as the inaugural women’s winner.

A 23-year-old from Belmont, Hall was disabled at an early age by polio but went onto to become a world-class wheelchair racer. Earlier in 1975 he finished the Boston Marathon in under 3 hours and Rodgers encouraged him to compete at Falmouth. He would go on to win eight consecutive wheelchair titles and Hall and Falmouth became leaders for the inclusion of disabled athletes in races around the world.

Falmouth’s first women’s wheelchair champion was Natalie Bacon in 1979 and like Hall, she won eight straight.

In 1976 Shorter returned to Falmouth and successfully defended his crown by beating Rodgers again — with some 2,000 other runners, and thousands of spectators filling the streets in a seven-mile block party. The event was fast becoming a nationally known race and a summer social spectacle. It was a unique blend of red-hot athletic competition, mixed with a backyard barbecue atmosphere of a class reunion, all set on a scenic course in the height of the Cape Cod vacation season. It is an irresistible combination.

The First Lady of Falmouth is Joan Benoit Samuelson, who was a college teenager when she won her first of six open division crowns. She has grown gracefully, still running in her 60s with fierce determination and winning age-group titles all along the way. “Coming back every year is like a homecoming, and I think it’s that way for a lot of the runners. It just feels right,” said Samuelson. Of course, Samuelson became a global icon when she won the gold medal in the inaugural women’s Olympic marathon at the 1984 Games. Her connection to Falmouth inspired her to create the Beach to Beacon 10K race, held in her native Maine as a prelude to Falmouth every summer.

However, for all its global appeal, Falmouth remains the quintessential American race with its roots deep in the sea and sand of Cape Cod. The fun run atmosphere fostered from a foundation built in the 1970s continues with a kaleidoscope of star-spangled colors, like a Fourth of July holiday fireworks show.

One of the memorable images is the huge American flag flying at the finish line waving runners home.

A lot has changed over the years.

And long after the revelry of race day Sunday subsides, the race’s impact continues in the community throughout the year. As Falmouth’s popularity exploded in the mid-1970s, co-director Rich Sherman helped create the Numbers for Nonprofits program, which became a model for other races. Charities (in the early years, before expanding, it was the Multiple Sclerosis Society) apply for coveted bib numbers and, if accepted into the program, runners are then recruited to raise funds. In 2019 there were nearly 3,000 runners who generated $5 million for 150 nonprofits, bringing the total to more than $40 million since 2000.

Tommy passed away in 2019 at the age of 85, but his soaring spirit endures and he will forever be the emotional heartbeat of the Falmouth Road Race.

“We were a band of brothers,” Tommy Leonard said often of those early years. “It was a race born out of friendship – those who were already friends and those who would become friends.”

Press coverage of that first Falmouth race was scarce, but the archives of the Cape Cod Standard-Times include an article that provides a telling tagline.