Twin Lights Half Marathon

Runners follow an out-and-back loop course that takes them along the area known here as Cape Ann, where they’ll run between the starting and finish line area at Good Harbor Beach and nearly all the way up to Halibut Point State Park and back. Along the way, the seashore will be visible for most of the race’s 13.1-mile route, as runners get an up-close and personal look at several of the sights that have deep roots in the nation’s maritime history. Known as “America’s oldest seaport,” Gloucester dates its history all the way back to 1623, when it was founded by an expedition chartered by England’s King James I and later became one of the earliest settlements of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the earliest of the English colonies in the “New World.” Ever since, the city and the Cape Ann area have been an important shipbuilding and fishing center. The Gloucester area also is known as one of New England’s premier art colonies, as it has attracted some of the country’s best-known painters and sculptors including Henry Lane, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper and others. Today, many artists live among the area’s full-time residents and show their works in the city’s bevy of art galleries all along the city’s downtown streets. The half marathon will start and finish in Gloucester’s Good Harbor Beach, which lies just a couple miles east of the city center.