Beginning pre-dawn June 25, runners and vans carrying runners will cross the Sheepscot River from Edgecomb and make two Wiscasset stops, according to Wiscasset Waterfront Committee Chairman Susan Robson and Town Planner Ben Averill.

The first Wiscasset stop, on the waterfront, and the second, at Shaw’s supermarket on Route 1, are part of GiddyUp Productions’ 200-mile Rock Lobster Relay, Robson told fellow committee members. The event website, at rocklobsterrelay.com, describes GiddyUp Productions as a South Portland-based event management company.

Robson said she thinks helping with the event could be a lot of fun, and that the sunrise on the river will make a nice view for participants and volunteers.

While the event falls on the first weekend of summer, Averill doubted the runners and vans would affect local traffic due to the time of day, and because the teams’ start times are staggered.

Teams’ waterfront stops are scheduled for 3:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.; the ones at Shaw’s, for 4 a.m. to 11 a.m., Robson said. Overnight, runners will wear reflective vests, along with a light in front and a flashing light in back, according to the website.

The two-day race starts June 24 in Bar Harbor and ends June 25 in Portland; fifty-four teams of runners were already set to take part and Wiscasset Parks and Recreation Director Todd Souza will be trying to get a Wiscasset team together, Robson and Averill said. The town can enter a team for free if it supplies the stops with volunteers, Robson said.

According to the website, the course’s twenty-fourth of 36 exchange points, where one runner passes a bracelet to the next, happens at the American Legion in Damariscotta; nine miles later comes one at the Wiscasset town dock on Water Street. The course continues onto Fore and Lee streets, then Route 1 for the other stop. The course maps online show no Woolwich exchange point before the race moves on to Bath. 

Phone and email messages to GiddyUp Productions were not immediately returned.

Boardwalk talk

Averill said he hopes to get word from the Midcoast Economic Development District in the next month to month and a half, on the town’s try at funding toward a possible boardwalk or shoreline path. Any required local match will depend on which, if any, grant is awarded, he said.

Among the options Topsham engineering firm Wright-Pierce explored, a boardwalk along or onto the river would affect abutters’ waterfront views more and cost more to maintain than a path would, a Wright-Pierce landscape architect told the committee in April 2015. Averill said if a grant comes through, he would recommend pursuing the walking trail.