Transcription of Dr. Mylan & Maya Cohen for the show Maine’s TD Beach to Beacon 10K #305
Dr. Lisa Belisle: My next guests are actually a duo, both in life and in the job that they are doing as volunteers for the TD Beach to Beacon 10k. This is Maya Cohen, who is the volunteer coordinator of the TD Beach to Beacon 10k and her husband, Dr. Mylan Cohen, who is the co-medical director of the race. Thanks for coming in today.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Thanks for having us.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Now I’ve actually spoken with both of you before on multiple occasions. It’s nice to have friends back in the studio to have a conversation about something that I love, running. You’ve both been involved in this race for almost two decades now. How did you get involved?
Maya Cohen: Well, you put it that way, that’s a long time, actually.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: It is a long time.
Maya Cohen: The inaugural race, we were actually moving into our home in Cape Elizabeth, and our home actually happens to be right next to Fort Williams. The year that we moved in, we couldn’t understand why our moving truck wasn’t making it to the house, and so while we were waiting for our furniture, there was a lot of noise going on in the park next to us.
A woman walks up the driveway with a sunhat on, and wanted to know if she could take a look into the house. I said, “Sure, I guess.” She said, “I want to see my childhood bedroom. I’m Joan Benoit, I’m Joanie’s aunt.” I said, “Oh, all right.” So she came and she looked at her childhood bedroom and reminisced; she says, “Well, before people realize that I’m gone, I should probably get going.” That was that. That was our introduction to the race.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: We eventually did get our furniture.
Maya Cohen: We eventually did.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Later on that afternoon, Joanie Benoit Samuelson is walking around and reminiscing about cleaning out the birdbath and whatnot, and the next thing you know, we’re invited to be-
Maya Cohen: Host families.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Host families for runners. Shortly after that, Maya became the volunteer coordinator, I was volunteering in the medical tent, and-
Maya Cohen: Here we are.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Here we are, and we’re both on the board now. We’re fully involved with the race.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Are either one of you runners?
Maya Cohen: No.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Once upon a time I ran a little bit, but no, I’m a bicyclist.
Maya Cohen: I’ve tried running in the past. I’m not a natural runner. I can do a lot of other things; running is just not one of them.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: We enjoy supporting those who love to run.
Maya Cohen: Yes, we do.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Well, that I guess is my question. If you’re not runners, it’s not about the race per se, it’s not about the competition as much, it’s about something else.
Maya Cohen: Yeah. I fully appreciate the athleticism that’s involved, and the commitment to training for running. I admire that, but as far as being involved with a race, it’s really a … being involved in a community event.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: I think it’s about giving back to the community.
Maya Cohen: And giving back to the community, and being involved with the community. It is a feel-good event. I mean, everyone, it’s … they enjoy volunteering. It is in some ways like a big family reunion, really.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: It’s an incredible team.
Maya Cohen: Yeah.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: It’s an amazing team that puts on this race. It’s the same support staff that puts on the Boston Marathon as well. You have top in the world people putting on this race, and for me in a way, it’s kind of in the genes. My grandfather was a physician for the Boston Marathon; we’ve since become involved with the Boston Marathon.
I do think it’s … The race benefits children’s charities across the state of Maine every year and through that charitable part of the race, we feel like we’re not only helping people who are running the race, but we’re giving to the state of Maine by supporting a race that contributes to worthwhile charities.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Maya, why is it that … well, I guess this is a silly question. I was going to ask why volunteers are so important. What are the different jobs that volunteers are needed for at this race?
Maya Cohen: Oh, it’s not a silly question. Volunteers are essential to actually having a race like this function safely and efficiently. If you were to say, “We’re going to have 6,000 runners come to Cape Elizabeth and we’re going to start at 8:00 in the morning,” and you have no volunteers at all, you would be hard pressed to have any kind of success, I think.
The kinds of jobs that volunteers do, they range from helping pack and pick up for the runners, manning water stations, handing out t-shirts, driving buses, help manage crowds on race day, handing out food, preparing the runner’s food tent; we have an outstanding medical team that keeps runners safe. We have a number of programs that people volunteer for, and really, they’re essential to making sure that people get from point A to point B, people get to safely cross the finish line, and we clean the place up pretty darn quick.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Yeah. By noon, you’d never know there was an event that involved 6,000 runners and 2,000 spectators.
Maya Cohen: Or more, yeah.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: How many volunteers does it take?
Maya Cohen: We run about 800 to 840 volunteers every year. It fluctuates obviously depending on the year, but that’s about a sweet spot for us is 800.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: And do you ever have any difficulty that number of volunteers?
Maya Cohen: Some years we do, but we usually manage to get our volunteers by race day, really. We have some areas that have been typically difficult to recruit for, but if we don’t have enough people, we have volunteers that say, “I can help out when I’m done with this particular job.” Everyone is rolling their sleeves up to get the job done.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Which are the jobs that people don’t like?
Maya Cohen: I call them … they are not as sexy as other jobs. Things like sustainability; our sustainability program, also known as recycling, the sustainability program has been a program that has grown over the years. Our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint, and last year was a major push to be one of a few races to achieve what we call Evergreen status from the Council for Responsible Sport.
That’s a pretty big program that involves not only just recycling bottles, we compost recycle cardboard, we shuttle people, bike valet. It’s a much larger program than just picking up plastic bottles.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: It also has a social aspect.
Maya Cohen: And it also has a social responsibility aspect to it. The other area is our parking and shuttle program. We have a pretty extensive shuttle bus program that we’re able to take runners or spectators from different satellite parking areas, and get them to the starting line, or getting them to Fort Williams.
It takes a lot of people to kind of get people in the right bus, get them in the right location, and that takes a lot of people as well. In some cases, they are, these volunteers who work in those programs are in a way, the first face that people see for the race in the morning, so they’re also our ambassadors.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It is interesting because this is a point to point race, versus an out and back. The challenges of parking or transportation are going to be bigger than if you just ran one continuous loop.
Maya Cohen: That’s correct.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: That’s right. We’ve entertained over the years having it be a loop, but to be able to start at Crescent Beach and end at the iconic Portland Head Light is just hard to beat. In order to continue to have that kind of amazing group, we’ve decided to continue doing the work that we have been.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Mylan, you have a Masters in Public Health from Harvard, and you are currently a practicing cardiologist at the Maine Medical Center. For you, there are some bigger things that must be really interesting about this race as well.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Well, first of all, any event like this is really potentially a planned mass casualty event. That’s what my colleagues in the emergency medicine field would call it and so it does take a lot of planning. You do kind of have to put on a public health hat; work very closely with the professionals in the fire department and the police department, town officials, in order to make sure that things are as safe as possible, not only for the runners but also for spectators and volunteers.
We’re also now getting more into looking at the processes that we use to treat runners, and we’re looking more at potentially even doing some research so we can learn from these processes and help other races. In fact, a lot of the things that we learned about taking care of overheated runners at the Beach to Beacon, those things that we’ve learned have been transitioned into use at the Boston Marathon and have saved lives there.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Well, give me some examples of that.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: If we have a runner who overheats and has a core temperature that may be life-threatening at 109, we take that runner and we put that runner basically in a tub of ice water, and cooled them down as quickly as possible. They’re actually going to do a lot better having that happen in the field in our medical tent than being transported to the hospital.
Those people in our community might subscribe to the Boston Globe or followed the Boston Marathon last year, there was this amazing photograph on the front page of the Globe of the runner being carried across the finish line. He had collapsed like 200 feet from the finish line, and we treated him; he had a core temperature of 109.
I’m not violating any patient confidentiality here; he gave a full interview and recounted all of this to the Boston Globe, but what’s really amazing is that he came back this year to the Boston Marathon medical team and spoke in front of an audience of nearly a thousand people, thanking them for what we had done for him, and just recounting what it was like to be carried across the finish line, get cooled, and then to recover in the hospital after that. I think that the processes that they used for the Boston Marathon weren’t always the same, and that’s where our knowledge here at the Beach to Beacon really has helped another race.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: There’s a broad range of wellness that people who decide to enter in the TD Beach to Beacon 10k have. Some people are, maybe they run only once or twice in the weeks before the race, and some people are high level athletes, so I would imagine that there’s a range of issues that you’re dealing with, having to deal with people’s innate health.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Yeah, their innate health and fitness. You’re exactly right, there are some people who get out there and say, “Well, it’s just 10k. I can do this, I don’t really need to train for it-”
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Which is 6.2 miles.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: That’s right.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Just for people who aren’t thinking in metrics, but yes.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: That’s right. I think from a public health perspective, I would say you absolutely do have to prepare for this. Depending on what the temperature is that day, you do have to hydrate. Unlike a marathon, electrolyte problems aren’t generally the problem, it’s more heat and so you want to dress appropriately as well.
I’m amazed how many people come across with wearing black; they look very chic, black running long pants, black tops that cover their arms, and a black hat. Meanwhile, it’s getting to be a pretty warm day with the sun beating down, and I can just pick out those people that we’re going to be treating for heat stroke. I think training, being well hydrated, running within your ability, dressing appropriately, and listening to your body; those are all things that people can do to help themselves to have a really enjoyable day on the race course and stay out of the medical tent.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Now we’ve been talking about weather as it relates to the people who are running the race, but I’m guessing that there is also an impact on the volunteers, Maya.
Maya Cohen: No, there is. I always remind our volunteers during race week that they need to prepare for race day as well, and you know, we work rain or shine so I always tell them that. I also tell them that they also need to dress appropriately. They need to wear appropriate shoes. I mean, not necessarily sneakers, but something you can be in all day. They need to hydrate, they need to take care of themselves, because if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others.
I really make it a point that you need to take care of yourself before race day. I also tell people that when you’re working with other volunteers, and you see someone struggling, or you see someone who’s tried, or you see someone who’s not well, you need to take care of your fellow volunteer as well.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: When I think about 800 volunteers in the days immediately before and immediately after, that’s a lot of people to coordinate. How does that work for you logistically?
Maya Cohen: I am very lucky to work with an incredible organizing committee. The organizing committee has different coordinators for different areas. We’ll have a person who coordinates just the water program, and that individual is in charge of that program, and we’ll communicate with each other about different difficulties in recruitment, or staffing shortfalls in that program.
The Beach to Beacon is very, very fortunate in having an organizing committee that has a group of coordinators that has had exceptionally low turnover. People that I work with today, I worked with when I first started this job 16 years ago. There’s a lot of institutional knowledge, there’s a lot of fun; they’re like another family, too. I’m very fortunate to work with a group like that, it makes my job infinitely easier but also a lot of fun.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: The fact that you’ve both been working on this together for this amount of time, and you’ve been married for this amount of time, and you share a son who is just a little bit older than the amount of time you’ve been working on this race I believe-
Maya Cohen: Yeah, you’re right.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: That’s interesting, that you have to be able to figure out how to navigate your different roles that each of you are taking within the relationship. How’s that worked out for you?
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Works pretty well.
Maya Cohen: It actually works really well.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: I know that as volunteer coordinator, she is my boss.
Maya Cohen: And it works out just fine.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: It works out just fine.
Maya Cohen: We’ve been doing it for so long, even with our son, it’s kind of, “This is what we do as a family.”
Dr. Mylan Cohen: He’s volunteered as well.
Maya Cohen: He’s volunteered. Our son is 20 now, he knows that August, it’s Beach to Beacon; you might as well have a Hallmark card thing for us. It’s gotten to the point where when it gets close to race day, I receive email cards from friends, family, other past volunteers saying, “Good luck, have a good time.” You know, strong work, that kind of stuff. It’s worked out pretty well. This is just kind of what we do together.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Now that he is 20 and he is finishing up his junior year in college, and so obviously he’s out of the house and now the two of you get to have this different life than you had before … I know that you do a lot of sailing, and motorbiking, or something?
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Motorcycling, right.
Maya Cohen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: And you’re out in the world. Does this change the way that you this change the way that you think about the Beach to Beacon?
Dr. Mylan Cohen: That’s an interesting question. I don’t think so. It’s still something that grounds us in the community every August. We’re not going to miss it, we’re going to be there. This is just what we do that time of the year. It is kind of interesting going out into other communities. Every once in a while I’ll be present at another race, or we just happen upon another race, or … I’ve been in New York for the New York Marathon, for example.
You just kind of watch it and go, “Hmm.” You know, you pick up little things, you think about things that you can bring here home to make our race even better. I think that Maya said it; it’s just really become something that our family does. Even though our son is away from home right now, if he were to drop in, he knows what he’d probably be doing if he were here on the first weekend in August each year.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Right. I’m interested in, and this is a little bit more of a serious topic, obviously, but given the tragedies that occurred at the Boston Marathon several years ago, I’m interested in how as volunteers for that marathon, how that changed your perception of the safety of big races like the TD Beach to Beacon.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: I think we’re very fortunate to have an incredible public safety department at Cape Elizabeth. Chief Neil Williams is just an amazing individual, really great depth of experience, obviously huge connections in the law enforcement world, and between the chief and also the chief of the fire department, they have vast experience and do a great job in preparedness.
I would say that in the race following the Boston Marathon, security was stepped up exponentially. We still take security extremely seriously. I think it’s safe to say that it is something that’s kind of in the back of our minds-
Maya Cohen: Right.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: But it hasn’t taken over our lives.
Maya Cohen: No, no.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: I think … I’m confident. I feel confident in our public safety people to make sure that the race stays safe and secure, and that not only runners, but spectators and volunteers can just attend to their duties and not worry about other things that are happening in the world, or could happen.
Maya Cohen: I think that also, the year following Boston as Mylan had mentioned, it was the year that security was stepped up. There were many unfortunate things we can talk about, but one thing that I think is unfortunate in particular is that, that event changed the face of all racing; it changed how we functioned.
That year when we had the Beach to Beacon, I think that one of the things that for me was important was to get to work. Get to work, and also to demonstrate to our volunteers that you know, we’re going to still do a world class race, we’re going to do it well, and we’ll be safe about doing it.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Yeah, I agree.
Maya Cohen: And that I think for me was, I think that gave our volunteers some sense of, “Okay, let’s just go do this. We’re going to be okay.”
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Every year since, both down at Boston but also up here, I think has been an affirmation of what is good about people, about what’s good about volunteers. It’s an affirmation of really positive things that happen in our communities, the positive impact that we can have through putting on an event like this and benefiting various charities. That’s what we focus on, is the positive.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Maya, you already introduced the idea of the Evergreen certification-
Maya Cohen: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Do you see other things changing in the next 20 years of this race?
Maya Cohen: When we started this race, we thought it was the right thing to just recycle, just recycle bottles. Then we were, what 20 years ago? We were completely paper-based when it came to applications, and here we now fast forward to now, where we compost and recycle, we do everything online. I think in the next 20 years, who knows where technology will take us, but I do think that the one thing that is really important to this race is its impact on the community, its impact on the environment, and I see every year we make small improvements. In 20 years, who knows what we’ll bring, but I can assure you that it will be an improvement every single year.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: And what about from a medical standpoint? Anything that you’re seeing changing?
Dr. Mylan Cohen: There are a lot of possibilities. Just from better communication technology; Fort Williams is a tough place when it comes to communications. We just want a cell tower that we can reliably get cell service. But no, seriously, we do have new ways of communicating wirelessly there. We were talking about new ways of handling electronic records of runners, better ways to communicate with emergency services, and to hospitals if we have to transport someone.
We’re constantly looking for better ways to treat people inside the medical tent, and just like medical technology in your physician’s office or at the hospital, we’re benefiting from medical advances every day. I do think though, sometimes what’s old is new, and as funny as it might sound to some of your listeners, dunking a hot runner in ice water still is the mainstay of how we treat a majority of the people coming to the medical tent. That probably won’t change. Beyond that, probably some improvements in communication would be where we make advances.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Well, I will be joining you this year as part of the Maine Magazine running team.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Excellent.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You will see us all with our t-shirts, we’re very excited to be doing this. I’m hoping we will not need your services, Mylan-
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Stop by and say hello, that’s all.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Yeah, that’s good. Maya, I’m certain we’re going to need your services-
Maya Cohen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: The services of your team. I appreciate not only the work that you’ve been doing for nearly the last, I guess 16 years officially plus, and I also appreciate your taking the time to come in and talk to us today. It’s a very complex set of logistics that you’re working with, and you are doing a great job to pull it all off.
Maya Cohen: Well, thank you for having us.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Well, thank you very much for having us.
Maya Cohen: It was fun.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: Great to be here.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I’ve been speaking with Maya Cohen, who is the volunteer coordinator of the TD Beach to Beacon 10k and her husband, Dr. Mylan Cohen, the co-medical director of the race. We’ll see you in August.
Maya Cohen: See you then.
Dr. Mylan Cohen: See you there