LISBON FALLS

Distinctively Different.

That slogan has been partnered with the ever-so-deemed “you either love it or hate it” soft drink “Moxie” that has become a historic staple in the Northeast, especially in the State of Maine.

The story developed back in the 1880s, with the drink taking off in the early 1900s, before the brand struggled to take off until it hit the New England area.

Finally in the 1980s, a small town in Lisbon Falls saved the name and has developed the unique brand into a now largely attended festival every July, known as the “Moxie Festival,” taking the place of the Frontier Days that were celebrated in the 1970s and early ’80s.

With attendance growing each year, planners decided to add a 5K road race to the agenda and the success behind it hasn’t stopped growing, starting from just 40-50 runners in 1995, to a most recent group of more than 600 a year ago.

With the Lisbon High School track team holding success over the last decade, Lisbon has slowly become a “running town,” a place for those who enjoy the sport to come and embody it.

For Lisbon Parks and Recreation’s Mark Stevens, this year’s 20th Moxie 5K helped develop the ideology that Lisbon has become a runner’s destination.

“I was a young recreation director at the time,” he said. “There were four or five of us that thought it would be great to have a 5K run in the town. We said ‘let’s just do it during the Moxie Festival, there’s going to be a lot of people here anyway.’”

All the timing was done by hand during the inaugural year, with no electronics and just stopwatches to track the participant’s finishing times.

The race route that was developed 20 years ago is still the same today, with the starting line beginning just past Frost Hill Avenue on Route 9 and making it’s way up to Higgins Street and looping around to Wing Street before heading back to Route 9.

A running town

“Recently Lisbon has turned a corner,” Stevens said in terms of the sport of running. “The town supported a new track (at Lisbon High School) and that wasn’t easy. It’s been 15 to 20 years in the making where the town has tried to gain enough support to fund a new track. We finally had the right group at the right time that pursued the building of a track. It just happened to coincide with Dean Hall’s first ever boys state championship.”

Over the last decade, the Lisbon track teams have created a dynasty, especially within the Mountain Valley Conference, with the boys team recently winning its 10th straight MVC title and the girls falling just short of their 10th after winning nine in a row.

Hall states that the sport of track and field is something that can benefit anyone for the rest of their life, bringing support to why many former track stars compete in such road races.

“What kids do in track and field is a lifelong activity,” he said. “Some of the things that we do in practices, when they’re 35- or 40-years old and want to get in shape, they’ll be doing some of the things that we do in the program. Once you go in that direction, if you still have those competitive juices, you’re going to be like ‘well let’s hit the roads.’”

Hall has been a track and field coach for more than 30 years, spending most of it with the Greyhounds, but despite the success that he has had, he credits it all to the kids.

“It’s sort of like the kids just come,” he said. “You can take any kid who is willing to work hard, who have that competitive edge to them. You say to them ‘here’s 19 events’ and if you get that kid who has that interest and competitive edge, you can make them into a champion.

“I’m not sure if there’s any secret that we have, it’s the kids that make the program. We give them the skills and the drills, you name it, they keep coming and they make it what it is.”

The town has also developed a new walking path that stretches along the Androscoggin River and railroad tracks, where people continue to flock to walk and run during time of leisure, creating yet another reason to come to Lisbon.

How does this connect to the Moxie Festival and its 5K road race?

It all stems back to the Moxie slogan of “Distinctively Different.” The powerful Route 9 hill gives the Moxie 5K a different twist than normal road races.

“The Moxie race, it’s a tough race, it’s a hilly race,” Stevens said. “If it was flat it wouldn’t match the tagline ‘Moxie.’ It’s going to take some tough ‘Moxie’ to get through that race. Everyone comes back another year. Even though they curse the hills when they finish, the pain is there, but they seem to come back.”

Runners such as Greene’s Erik McCarthy, Auburn’s Tom Menendez and Lisbon’s own Brian Ganong have ran the Moxie 5K since the beginning, and plan to be highlighted at the start of next Saturday’s race. The volunteers of the day have practically remained the same since the start, showing up at 4 a.m. year after year to get things set up.

“In track, even if you’re not first, not in the top two, three, four or five, they still want to get better and hold that edge,” Hall said. “It’s the same thing as those who run the Moxie 5K, they want better times and they want to conquer that Route 9 hill. If you’re physically active, you’re going to be active the rest of your life.”

“I also think part of it is the adrenaline rush,” Stevens said. “You have 500 people behind you and when we first started, even though it was a smaller group, it might have been the typography and the hilly route that we had picked out. It was a challenge and there’s a long finish. Pretty much the last half of a mile is downhill. It’s a strong, fast finish and we always have a crowd. At the end of the race you get your award and get to stick around to watch the best parade in the State of Maine.”