Some of the more “veteran” members of the Castine community, familiar with runners, remember Harold Hatch. One even recently recalled: “Yes, he was the kid looking at his stop watch as he won a Maine championship race. Nobody was near him when he finished. Harold Hatch could run fast and he had a great kick!”

Harold Hatch was born on October 30, 1939 in Castine, Maine, a quiet town located near the end of a peninsula in Penobscot Bay. In the 1940s, in order to learn the news, a person had three options: listen to the radio, read the daily newspaper, or talk to the local telephone operator. The only thing that resembled television were the movies on Saturdays. It was during the previews of those movies where Harold Hatch discovered the world of sports. Harold says that by his sophomore year in high school he knew he wanted to be a coach.

Thousands of people have traveled the one road into Castine. The goal for many was to attend college at Eastern State Normal School and the Maine Maritime Academy. Harold Hatch took the opposite direction. After Grade 8 he took that one road out of Castine to attend high school. Harold’s aunt and uncle were both teachers. During the years 1953 to 1955 they taught at Deer Isle/Stonington, and then they moved to Southwest Harbor. They invited Harold to live with them.

Roger Davis was the basketball and baseball coach at Deer Isle-Stonington. He realized that a few of the students on those teams wanted to run in the fall. During Harold’s sophomore year Davis organized a five-man cross country team. The team won the Hancock County Championship. It was while he was a member on that team Harold first realized that he had running talent. The five members, all starters on the baseball team, would also win the Hancock County (Class S) track championship the following spring.

In the fall of 1955, when Harold was a junior at Pemetic High School, he set the course record on the University of Maine cross country course while winning the Maine State Class M Cross Country Championship. About a week later he finished 8th in the New England Championships in Storrs, Connecticut.

The summer of 1956 people in Castine were beginning to describe and observe Harold’s running ability. During some of his training sessions his little brother could be seen peddling his bicycle at full speed, trying to keep up with Harold on the hilly roads in town. Road races were very hard to find in the State of Maine; however, on July 4, 1956, fourteen years before America went running, Harold Hatch won a 2-plus mile road race in Castine.
A few months later Harold was again the Class M Cross Country Champion, breaking his own University of Maine course record.

In the late 1950s it was difficult to find experienced cross country coaches. Harold regards himself as “self coached” and claims that through the power of goal-setting he was able to win the 1956 New England Cross Country Championship. His goal, in that race, was to finish in third place and that was his race position with only 200 yards to the finish line. Suddenly he heard footsteps behind him and automatically sprinted – out-kicking and passing the two runners ahead of him.

In high school Harold’s first love was basketball, playing for coach Clyde Hayden at Pemetic, which won the State Class M Championship in 1957. It was Harold’s senior year and he played well during the Eastern Maine Championships. He impressed the reporters with his ball handling and behind-the-back, Bob Cousy-style dribbling. He was selected for the Bangor Daily News All State 3rd team.

For his combination of successes, Harold was selected by the Bangor Daily News, in 1957, as their first high school athlete to be inducted into the Bangor Daily News Sports Hall of Fame. He finished his senior year winning the Class M Mile Championship in a state record time of 4:31.9.

The lure of an athletic scholarship landed Harold at Boston University and he had a great cross country season, winning all his dual meets and placing 2nd in the New England Freshman championships. However, he wasn’t happy at Boston University and transferred to the University of Maine, losing a year’s eligibility. H ran 3rd-to-4th man on the last University of Maine New England Cross Country Championship Team and was elected captain of the UMaine cross country team.

Harold’s career goal was to be a coach and he left UMaine after graduation to teach math and coach cross country, track and basketball in Massachusetts. After seven years in the public schools he decided to get a master’s degree.

In 1961, Harold and Andrea Hatch married and three children promptly followed: James, Sara, and Mark.

Subsequently, the Hatches sold their house in Massachusetts, packed up their three kids, and left for Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Harold chose BYU because it had a nationally-ranked track team and he wanted to volunteer as a graduate assistant coach to learn more about coaching. He calls it one of the greatest years of his life. After graduating he took a job as director of athletics at the Middlesex School, a private boarding school in Concord, Mass. After 11 years there, he left and took a job at Thayer Academy, a private day school in Braintree, Mass., where he taught math and coached cross country, track, and girls basketball. After 19 years he retired from teaching and spent five years coaching the women distance runners at MIT in cross country, indoor, and outdoor track.

Through his many years of coaching Harold coached his share of individual champions and team championships. He was nearly always coaching a competitive team in his league. Harold was not the type of coach who stood around with the clipboard; most of the time he was with his team, doing both the distance work and interval training.

During the years when their children were young, Harold set aside his own competitive racing. Looking back now Harold knows he found what many husbands have learned: “Their wife and children can start them going places again.”

In 1976, while at Middlesex School, Andrea began running for fitness and, quite by coincidence, their oldest son James needed a partner to run an 11-mile, two-generation race, at the school. At that time Harold was not in top condition but knew he could run 11 miles. They all finished the race and won the two-generation award. That gave both Harold and Andrea the incentive to begin long distance training and they soon began racing 30 times per year.

Harold’s first marathon was the Silver Lake Dodge Marathon the following spring. Three inches of wet snow was on the ground when he finished with a time of 3:03. He followed that run with a 2:44 time at Boston. His best time at Boston was a 2:40 in 1979.

Turning 40 in the fall of 1979, Harold began training in December to run the New England Masters Mile in January at the Harvard track. He set a New England Masters record, in a time of 4:38.6.

During the next 20 years Harold and Andrea ran in numerous national age group championships in track, cross country, and road races. Harold often finished high in his age group. At age 50 he was 2nd in the National Masters 10K Cross Country championships in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, and ran 4:58.4 to win the New England 50-plus Masters Mile. Andrea and Harold ran in the World Masters Games in Eugene, Oregon, on the famous Hayward Field track, in 1989. Unfortunately, Harold was two months shy of 50, and finished in the middle of the 45-49 pack in the 10K Cross Country, 5K track, and 3K steeplechase races.

Locally, Harold had numerous age group wins around New England, including being the overall winner at the Machias 5 Mile Race and a Castine race, at age 40.

Harold and Andrea ran with the Central Maine Striders a few summers and then joined the BAA. Later on they joined the Boston Running Club. They won a few 10K & 8K Cross Country Masters team championships in Syracuse, Louisville and Boston.

Through the years Harold spent 25 summers running the golf shop and teaching both golf and tennis at the Castine Golf Club.

Additional rewards for Andrea and Harold were that their sons and daughter were involved in running. They were able to coach them all in high school. James also enjoyed hockey and golf. Sarah ran many years on the road. She was the first American woman to finish the London Marathon, in 3:05, in 1995. Mark won the 16-team Independent School Cross Country Championship all four years and was a Division III Cross Country All-American three times, at Bates College in Lewiston.

Andrea Hatch has now made a name for herself, having the longest consecutive streak at the Boston Marathon. She has now finished 30 consecutive Bostons, with a best time of 3:15. She has finished at least 75 total marathons, with a PR of 3:10.

Harold continued to run competitively until his early 60s and has since done cross training to maintain his fitness. He calls it “maintenance fitness to be ready to resume training in my next life.” He says of his career in running: “I wouldn’t trade the running lifestyle for any other. It was awesome.”