Before last year, Rachel Lowe was not a runner.

She wasn’t involved in sports as a child, wasn’t an athlete in high school or college. Running didn’t interest her then. By the time she was in her 30s, Lowe was a wife and mother with two young children at home. She wanted more exercise but still didn’t consider running for sport. She certainly didn’t consider racing.

“It’s never been something I even thought that I could do,” she said.

Until Couch to 5K.

The eight-week, Auburn-Lewiston YMCA program helps train couch potatoes, novice athletes and former runners for the Y Fit Fest and other 5-kilometer races. Lowe liked the idea of training with other first-timers. She liked the idea of doing something she’d never done — and then having the goal of competition.

Lowe completed both the program and the 3-mile Fit Fest.

“My goal last year was just to finish,” said Lowe, 39. “I was pleased that I did.”

So pleased that this year she’s back to do it all again. And more. In addition to the Couch to 5K training program and this weekend’s Y Fit Fest, she’s signed up to compete in the 5K L-A Bridge Run in August.

Running, Lowe said, “just sparked my fancy.”

She’s not the only one. 

Running, cycling and racing events, once novelties in sedentary central Maine, are suddenly drawing hundreds to thousands of participants, many of them baby boomers who want to get into shape, as well as beginner athletes who want a challenge and complete novices who want to raise money for a cause. The events are now so popular that at least nine are scheduled in Lewiston-Auburn this summer and fall, five of them in June alone.

It’s a trend that local fitness experts love. And participants can’t seem to get enough of. 

Lowe now runs every week with her husband, both training for the next event. 

“It’s become our date night,” she said.

Not just for Olympians anymore

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Lewiston-Auburn was filled with fitness events and competitions, including triathlons, canoe races and simple road races. But in the 1990s, those events began to fizzle. Sponsors pulled their support in an effort to save money in the economic downturn. Novices stopped participating. The most passionate athletes went elsewhere to compete.

Over the past 10 years or so, some events continued, including the Lake Auburn Road Race and Dick Williamson Time Trial, both hosted by the Maine Cycling Club. But few new events cropped up and those that did saw little participation.

In recent years, things started to change. Fitness events and competitions became increasingly popular throughout Maine and demand trickled into Lewiston-Auburn. Triathlons, added to the Olympics in the past decade, got more attention from both experienced and novice athletes. Cycling and running events started to attract people who wanted to set fitness goals and needed the deadline of a competition to do it. Fitness-themed fundraisers drew participants who wanted to both help a cause and get healthy — ideally with other athletes who were supportive rather than intimidating.  

In 2008, the 5K L-A Bridge Run, Y Fit Fest and Emily’s Run joined forces to become the Greater L-A Triple Crown 5K Series. Separately, each fundraiser was lucky to pull in 100 to 200 people. Organizers hoped that by supporting each other in logistics and organization, the events would be stronger. And they were. But the races also got another perk: They became dramatically more popular.

Each event now draws 600 or more participants. Some of them are hard-core athletes. Others have never run in their lives. 

“It’s almost like there’s this resurgence of people wanting to run again,” said Tish Caldwell, wellness director for the Auburn-Lewiston YMCA and race director for the Fit Fest. “And people wanting to walk at what were running events. The first year we had a handful of walkers. Last year that turned into a couple of handfuls. This year even more walkers are signing up because they’re realizing, ‘You know what? Yes, I can do this. It’s not just a running event. And it doesn’t matter if a runner comes in at 25 minutes and I’m coming in at 55 minutes because they’re all going to be there with me.'”

In 2009, Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston created the Dempsey Challenge, a daylong running and cycling event to raise money for the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope and Healing. That event drew thousands and proved so popular that CMMC expanded it to a two-day event this year and added more running and cycling options.

“You had 3,500 people come together in the Lewiston-Auburn area for a common cause that was based around health and fitness — running, walking, cycling,” said Bob Brainerd, owner of the Central Maine Conditioning Clinic in Auburn and head of a local running group. “Whoever would have thought they’d have 3,500 people in the Lewiston-Auburn area come together for things like that?” 

This year, participants can also sign up for LADU, a June 27 duathlon organized by Museum L-A that, in part, highlights Lewiston’s mills, and a yet-to-be-named 5K and 10K Halloween trail run based at Lost Valley in Auburn, the renewal of a defunct CMMC run. 

“I think it’s a fantastic thing. It’s your health,” said Eric Cobb, race director for the unnamed Halloween run. “It gives people an excuse to be out and be healthy.”

On the run

It’s not just the events themselves that are popular. Exercise clubs and training groups — some of them catering to brand-new athletes — are also seeing a surge in new members.

Brainerd’s running group began seven years ago with about 40 core members. It now has about 150. The Maine Cycling Club began about five years ago with 40 members. It now has about 150, not including those who show up solely for the group’s “get ready rides,” training for the Dempsey Challenge.   

The YMCA now offers Girls on the Run, a popular program that teaches girls in grades three through five about running and fitness and helps them train for the 5K Fit Fest. It also offers training classes to would-be cyclists and Couch to 5K, the weekly program that trains adults to run a 5K by encouraging them to both walk and run, and then very gradually increase running time.

Renee Courtemanche used to run before she had her children, now ages 5 and 2. A CMMC employee with ties to the cancer community, Courtemanche wanted to show her support for the Dempsey Challenge last year, but she didn’t feel up to running. She and her mother walked the Dempsey 5K. This year Courtemanche, 32, wanted to run, but she knew she had to train, and she knew she needed support. She joined the Couch to 5K.

“If I make a commitment to a group or set a goal — like next year I’m going to run the Dempsey Challenge — it kind of keeps me honest,” she said. “The same philosophy applies to the Couch to 5K. If you commit to all these people that you’re going to come every week and run, you know, then you stick to your guns. Versus if you’re just doing it on your own, it’s easy to (say), ‘Oh, I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like running today.'” 

She expects to run both the Fit Fest and the 5K portion of the Dempsey Challenge.   

But joining a training program or signing up for a race doesn’t guarantee fitness for life. Or even fitness for the immediate future. 

Lowe thought Couch to 5K would set her up to keep running. But after she finished the program and Fit Fest last year, her enthusiasm waned.

“It was a great program and I really enjoyed it, but I got to the first race and I lost, I don’t know, I lost a little something,” she said.

Still, when the program came around again this spring, she signed up for it and for Fit Fest again. And she added the Bridge Run. 

Now that she’s begun running, she’s determined to keep going.

“It’s a challenge,” she said.

ltice@sunjournal.com

June:

Dick Williamson Memorial Time Trial, 9 a.m., Sunday, June 13

13.5 miles along Route 4 starting at the beginning of the Lake Auburn inlet and finishing just past Wildcat Enterprises in Turner. Usually participated in by more serious cyclists.

http://www.mainecyclingclub.com/Racing.html

LADU, 8 a.m., Sunday, June 27

Three-part race (a duathlon involving a three-mile run, 14-mile bike and another three-mile run) starting at Simard-Payne Park in Lewiston, going along the mills, rivers and canals, and ending back at the park.

Sign up at http://museumla.org/ladu/

July:

Emily’s Run, 9 a.m., Sunday, July 25

5k run starts at Edward Little High School in Auburn, winds through the suburbs and returns to the school.

Sign up at http://www.triplecrown5k.com/info_emily.htm

August:

LA Bridge Run, 9 a.m., Sunday, Aug. 29

5k run begins on Riverside Drive in Auburn, crosses several bridges, runs along the Androscoggin River and ends back at Riverside Drive.

Sign up at http://www.triplecrown5k.com/info_bridge.htm

October:

Dempsey Challenge, various times, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 2 and 3

Includes 10-, 25-, 50- and 100-mile cycle routes and 5k and 10k runs. All start and end at Simard-Payne Park in Lewiston.

Sign up at http://www.dempseychallenge.org/

5k and 10k trail run (as yet unnamed), Sunday, Oct. 31

To be held at Lost Valley in Auburn. Details not yet available.

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