Gate River Run Jacksonville

The Roll Continues With Gate River Run

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We’ve been on quite a run in Florida and especially North Florida in the first quarter of 2021. It started with the Jaguars hiring Urban Meyer on January 14th. While sports fans in general and Jaguars fans specifically are split on Meyer and his potential for success in professional football, Meyer’s hiring put the focus of the football world squarely on Jacksonville. The national media fawned over Shad Khan’s courtship and eventual hiring of Meyer.

As the political debate regarding how to deal with the pandemic raged on, Tampa hosted the Super Bowl, with limited fan capacity. The Bucs became the first team to play in the Super Bowl in their home stadium and beat the Chiefs for the NFL title. Tom Brady’s subsequent Lombardi Trophy toss from boat to boat seemed to immediately qualify him for “Florida Man” status

It seemed Brady had barely sobered up when the focus shifted to Daytona for Speedweeks and the Daytona 500. With a huge venue, again spectators were allowed in a limited capacity and the Great American Race as well as the road race the following week went off without a hitch.

Because it’s been such a strange year, college basketball seems a bit diminished and there’s less focus on the NCAA Tournament and March Madness.

So, while Florida and Florida State were both fighting for spots in the post-season, The Players grabbed the spotlight for the sports world for an entire week. NBC promotes The Players as one of the jewels of their sports coverage so when the tournament rolls around, it gets plenty of scrutiny.

This year it held up and more.

The golf course was pristine, the competition was tight, and a worthy champion emerged in Justin Thomas. While The Players does identify the best player through his bag that week, you can only have so many Stephen Ames’ win your tournament and be taken seriously as a significant event on the golf calendar.

That’s why it’s important that Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Rory McIlroy and now Justin Thomas have their names on the trophy. All Major winners, all add stature to The Players.

And while NFL free agency rolls on this week, a portion of the sports world still had its eye on Jacksonville for the Gate River Run.

A huge community event, the Gate also is the 15K National Championship that has names like Bill Rodgers, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, Meb Keflezigi, Deena (Drossin) Kastor and Shalane Flanagan, legends in international running, among the winners.

Last year the Gate River Run got just inside the window of events shutting down because of the spread of Covid-19.

“We were lucky,” race director Doug Alred said of the 2020 race. “If we were scheduled for two days later, we’d have had to call it off. When The Players announced their date, we had to move up a week. We ended up being lucky and they weren’t.”

Through the height of the pandemic, Alred and other race organizers around the country figured out how to host races and runs in a safe and comfortable manner for the participants.

“We tested things in the smaller races to see how it would go,” he explained. “That’s how we came up with our plan for the 8,000 runners for Gate River Run.”

There were unexpected challenges as well. In a normal year, everybody, nearly 25,000 runners in the combined events, shows up at the runner’s expo on Thursday and Friday to pick up their race packets. This year, to accommodate social distancing, participants had to register for a one-hour time slot over three days to get their packet.

Runners had to wear a mask to pick up their packet, and at the start/finish lines.

“We started people staggered in our smaller races,” Alred said. “Our goal was to keep people from being too close. Eight waves with anywhere from 800 to 1500 runners. We had two starting lines; staging areas based on race number.”

The water stations in the smaller races had eight-ounce bottles but that wasn’t feasible for a race the size of the Gate.

“We just decided to go with regular water stations,” Doug said. “All of our volunteers wore gloves and masks.”

Once runners get past the starting line, they didn’t have to wear their masks, but there’s no way to keep them apart while running.

“We’re hoping that they are spread out on the course,” Alred added. “We didn’t have any post-race or awards or ceremonies. When they got to the back of the finish line, we told them they can go home.”

Organizers tried to keep the race/run itself as normal as possible with the same course and bands sprinkled along the 9.3 miles for entertainment. But Alred wasn’t even sure if he scheduled the race that anybody would show up.

“My biggest concern was whether people would sign up,” he explained. “That’s one of the reasons we picked just over 8,000. The first day we were open for registration we had 4,500. We probably could have had over 10,000 in the 15K. The 5K is smaller, those people are probably staying home. Our sponsors stuck with us though and that helped a lot.”

Along with the community event, the Gate River Run will also still serve as the US National 15K Championship again this year. That means following all of the USA Track and Field covid protocols for the elite runners.

“We had to almost isolate them,” Doug said. “We put them all at the fairgrounds. Straight there from the hotel, then directly to the start line, and they were all blocked off. This year we started the women and then the elite men and then a couple of minutes later we started the rest of the field.”

In chilly and blustery conditions yesterday, Emily Sisson dominated the women’s field in 48:09, the fifth fastest women’s time in the race’s forty-four years. She was also the first person to cross the finish line claiming the $5,000 equalizer bonus. It was 52 degrees at race time with winds as high as 30 mph atop the Hart Bridge.

Only eleven seconds separated the top nine men in the closest finish in Gate River Run history, with Clayton Young outkicking the field to win by two seconds in 43.:52.

Having the 15K national championship and the elite runners that come with it is an important component of the Gate River Run’s success. The Gate used to compete with the Gasparilla Run in Tampa but once the Gate organizers chose to host the national title, the two races went in different directions. Gasparilla didn’t want to pay prize money and their registrations dwindled.

“They eventually reinstituted prize money and they’re on their way back,” Alred said. “But when you don’t have national media attention because you don’t have the big names it changes the race.”

It was a fortuitous decision to take on the National Championship. Elite runners all over the world refer to our River Run as simply, “The Gate.” And with this being an Olympic year, the elite runners were testing their form on the streets of Jacksonville.

“I didn’t want Gate River Run to just become another big weekend race,” Alred explained.

As the first major running event to be held since the beginning of the pandemic, the Gate, and the organizers literally blazed a trail showing how to get it done.

“We’ve done everything we need to do,” Doug said. “I think Jacksonville will be proud about what we accomplished. It looks like New York and Boston will bring their races back (marathons), but they might have read our playbook. Our Jacksonville Track Club was in a good enough financial position to take a hit on the race this year. Races like the New York marathon can’t afford to cut out half of the runners. Their budgets are too big. We’ll see what happens.”

Gate River Run Jacksonville

Would You Run or Ride

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We’ve always been an events town. You could set your schedule around what was happening during the year. Just about everybody knew when the Daytona 500 was happening, the Gate River Run, The Players, The Kingfish Tournament, opening weekend for the Jaguars and Florida/Georgia. Add in the Jazz Festival, the various shrimp festivals, opening of the beaches, World of Nations and a variety of other yearly events and there was always something going on.

I’d get about a dozen calls in the first three months of every year from women asking the specific date of the Florida/Georgia game. I’d pass it along and the response would always be the same.

“Good, I wanted to make sure I don’t get married that weekend.”

I always thought it was amusing that no guys called and asked me that question.

For the past few months, all of that has been gone. The number of events happening is near zero and just now organizers are exploring how to get people together for an event while keeping them apart.

“We want people to feel comfortable,” Gate River Run director Doug Alred said this week. Alred’s 1st Place Sports running organization administers the Gate River Run each year along with over 120 other races on the calendar. Since the Gate on March 7th there have been almost none. Over a hundred races and runs have been cancelled.

“I did hear about a run on the 4th of July in Ponte Vedra but we haven’t been able to put anything on,” Alred explained. “I shouldn’t say none,” he added. “We did something for Marathon High last month. We started ten people every ten minutes over two days. We told them ‘Don’t come hang around the start or the finish.’ We had 320 people participate with no problem. Chip timing helps with holding people back and not starting in one pack. They cross over the mats at the start line and go.”

Trying to figure out how to get “participation sports” back on the calendar, Alred’s organization sent out a survey last week trying to gauge what people are looking for when it comes to being in large groups. Eight percent of the respondents said they’re not coming out no matter what. Seventy percent said they’d probably participate. But almost everybody’s comfort level dropped off when the races got longer than a 5K. And if the event was more than 500 participants, interest started to wane.

“Nobody wanted to run in a 1000 person event,” Alred said of the results.

“We’re more worried about everybody’s safety, the athletes, the staff, the families,” Rich Hincapie, President of Hincapie Sports explained. Hincapie Sports puts on national bike rides around the country called “Gran Fondo’s” every year but none have happened in 2020. “We called off our Ft. Worth ride in March because we didn’t have enough knowledge at the time.”

Hincapie joined a national Cycling Event Task Force with twenty other event organizers, cyclists and medical professionals from around the country to try and figure out how to get things done. Over the last five months they’ve gone through multiple scenarios and put together a sixteen-page guide called “Race Management Guidelines for the Covid-19 Era.” It covers medical considerations, government regulations, athlete, fan and sponsorship guidelines as well as marketing ideas for the future.

“The more education we get the better,” he explained. “Having specific starting times, corrals for small groups, how to social distance at the start and the finish, all of those things that go into putting an event on safely.”

Both Hincapie and Alred agree that it’ll be an evolving consideration about how to put on events where people will feel comfortable participating.

“Things like keep your mask on until the start, or you can wear it if you want to,” Alred said. “Maybe a loosely fitting bandana. I’m sure somebody will come up with something that works for runners soon.”

“Most everybody we talked to, athletes, sponsors, volunteers had the same response: ‘Do something.’” Hincapie explained. “That’s what people are looking for, the idea that as the organizer you’ve taken the precautions, you’ve thought it out with social distancing, mask wearing, hand sanitizer, all of that.”

Using the current guidelines, organizers are trying to restart very soon. Just this week the annual “Tour de Pain” road race was moved to the beach and scheduled for August 22nd. The annual Hincapie Gran Fondo in Greenville, S.C. is on the calendar for late October.

The cost of organizing a run or a ride will be a factor in how many can happen going forward.

“We want to return to running but we’ll have to pick and choose what we can afford to do,” Alred, who has a four person, full-time organizing staff, explained.

“We can do a 250-person run on the beach because we don’t have to hire the number of police we’d need for a run on the roads.”

“Cycling events aren’t necessarily a money making proposition,” Hincapie explained. “With around two thousand riders we can use them as a marketing tool for our sportswear company.” He added that the plan to expand to ten events a year is still on the table. And Jacksonville is one place Hincapie admitted would be attractive for a future Gran Fondo.

Alred explained that the Tour de Pain will start with 250 spots open to see what kind of response they get. If it fills up they’ll have five different starting times of fifty runners each starting ten minutes apart.

“We’ll spread things out at the beach, no sense crowding up, no packet pick up and have no crowds, that’s our goal,” Alred said.

With that kind of spacing, and if there’s enough interest, they might be able to expand the number of participants. But projecting that out to 20,000 runners for the Gate River Run next March is a stretch.

“Under the current guidelines, the Gate is in peril,” Alred said. “I’ve got my fingers crossed that Covid cases are decreasing over the next few months. Even after a vaccine I think people will wait and see what happens.”

“The responsibility eventually falls to the athlete,” Hincapie said. “We’re not going to test everybody, that’s not for us to say, ‘You’re ok, go do what you want.’ There’s a small chance of transmission on a bike ride. It’s our responsibility to make things as safe as possible.”

Can’t Measure Heart

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There’s been a lot of talk recently about the measureables of athletes: height weight, 40-time, shuttle run, bench press. And some talk about production and “getting to the next level.”

As anyone who’s played anything knows one of the best cliché’s in sports is “you can’t measure heart.”

Because you can’t.

That’s why Donnie Horner III and Sharon Siegel-Cohen are such great competitors. One’s an athlete and one’s not. They don’t have much these days in terms of “measureables.”

But they have heart.

Donnie has a form of MS. Sharon has a form of ALS. Yet both compete everyday, get out of their comfort zone, motivate other people and make a difference.

I’ve worked on and off with Sharon for the past 38 years. She’s one of the rare, good people in TV, but you wouldn’t know her if you passed her on the street. She’s what the industry calls a “producer” whose job basically is to make the people on-air look good. And Sharon’s an expert at it.

Never one to get bogged down in the details, she didn’t think a thing of it when during a family trip to NY in June of 2017 she tripped on a sidewalk in the city.

“Everybody trips on the sidewalk in New York,” she told me. “Even though the swelling in my ankle went down I was still limping around in November.”

As the orthopedists and the physical therapists were trying figure out what was wrong with her, Sharon started walking with a cane in February of last year. Eventually they did a nerve conduction study and she ended up at a neuromuscular specialist who diagnosed her nearly a year later with a form of ALS.

Right now, Sharon’s lost the use of her legs and gets around in a wheelchair. “Whether it gets worse, I don’t know,” she said. “I can type and talk. It’s my new reality.”

Her sister Frances, a pretty good athlete in her younger days, now has MS. She jokingly gave Sharon some family ribbing and encouragement noting, “You weren’t much of an athlete anyway!”

Sharon laughed telling me that story, saying, and “She was trying to make me feel good. And she’s right, I was president of the service club and the drama club. It wasn’t that big a thing for girls to be involved in sports when I was younger. I think people with this disease all have a sense of humor.”

Commonly known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” ALS has been in public view since the Yankee first baseman retired, making his “I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” speech in 1939.

“That’s 80 years ago,” Sharon remarked. “It’s time something got done.”

That’s why at the recent ALS walk, Sharon was asked to speak and paraphrased Gehrig’s speech in her remarks.

“Today, despite this physical limitation, I feel like the luckiest woman alive,” she said. “I’m surrounded by family friends, colleagues, college friends I haven’t seen in 40 years. I’m buoyed by the love and support I’m getting.”

We often hear announcers refer to the “courage” it takes to hit that shot or the “guts” it takes to make that tackle. That’s amusing when you consider the courage and guts Sharon and others like her have everyday, competing against this kind of disease.

Sharon’s somebody who always sees the big picture. As a producer, she doesn’t sweat the details and lets people do their job. So it was a conscious decision that took some courage to get “in front” of the camera, so to speak, after being in the background her entire career.

“If I can lend my voice, I’ll do it,” she explained. “This disease isn’t incurable, it’s just underfunded.”

Last night, Sharon received the Courage Award at the Augie’s Quest banquet.

“I don’t want to dwell on it,” she added. “I want to stay active, working, reading.”

While September 11th has meaning to all Americans, Donnie Horner III remembers that day in 2009 when he was diagnosed with MS. Horner was an elite athlete, played hockey at the Naval Academy as a four-year starter. He delivered the game ball on the field for the Army/Navy game in his senior year. Club sport athlete of the year, an all-star game starter, Horner was in, as he describes it, “the best shape of my life.”

Then shortly after graduation, as an Ensign on watch aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard during workups for his first deployment, Horner felt his first symptoms of MS. “It felt like my legs had fallen asleep. I thought it was vibration from the steel-toed boots from the vibration of the ship. When it didn’t go away, I decided to get checked out.”

For Horner, the diagnosis was quick. Neurology at NAS Jax, MRI, Cat scan and spinal tap, second opinion at Mayo Clinic. After a promising athletic and academic career, he was retired from the Navy in April of 2010 with relapsing, remitting MS.

“I was cocky as a junior officer but this brought me back to earth,” he explained. “I threw myself into research, I refused to believe that this wasn’t something I could deal with.”

But despite his previous success competing and excelling in athletic competition, this confident, bright, “meet things head on” young Navy officer lost his edge.

“I was a low self-esteem, didn’t know what I was going to do kind of person,” he recalled. “I had to walk with a cane for months. I didn’t know how to give myself a shot. I was scared; I didn’t believe in myself at all. I felt bad physically, mentally and emotionally.”

That’s when he called on his athletic background to restart his life.

“The first five years were brutally hard. I couldn’t recognize I was dealing with insecurity or low self-esteem because I hadn’t ever been that,” he said. “Time has a way of contextualizing things. It was five years before I figured out how to act with this disease.”

So with encouragement from his wife Kristen and his family, some medical and spiritual help, Horner says he’s back at a “good place.”

So good that two weeks ago, Donnie, despite having MS, ran the Boston Marathon.

How is that possible? Courage. Guts.

“I wanted to live my best life,” he explained. “I looked into diet, and exercise. I go to mental health counseling, I took my spiritual affairs seriously.”

Last August, Horner decided he wanted to run the Boston Marathon. Despite the numbness in his leg that’s always there, the tingling and vibrations that come and go, he was diligent in his training. But admits part of it is luck.

“The week before the Boston Marathon I couldn’t get out of bed because of a relapse. Literally. Three days later I felt OK and went back to training,” he explained.

“I’m at my best when I set my goal and get things done,” he added. “The competitiveness and wanting to succeed all comes from playing sports. I enjoy being part of a team. I want to do whatever it takes.”

The “Strides Against MS” team raised $220,000 at the Boston Marathon. Horner alone raised over $9,000. Last weekend he competed in Jacksonville’s version of “Dancing with the Stars.”

“It’s a challenge,” he said of his active lifestyle despite living with MS. “I believe my background as an athlete has contributed to my well being as an MS patient.

And how’d he feel after competing in the Boston Marathon and seeing Kristen at the finish line?

“Like I scored a hat trick. Maybe ten goals! Never been happier since my wedding day.”

Gate River Run Prep

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If you’ve been training for this week’s Gate River Run and you’re worried about the last week of training, don’t be. If it’s your first Gate, you’ll be fine. Unless you’re trying to qualify for a national team or prepping for some of the top ten-prize money or the equalizer bonus, you’ll be fine no matter what you’ve done. That’s because the Gate River Run is a giant social event. It’s the second biggest one-day party in town, right behind Georgia-Florida.

If you want to run the whole 15K, you probably did some training over the last couple of months. That’ll be enough. The size of the field of runners, the atmosphere and the excitement of the day will carry you through the 9.3 miles. There’s a band every mile. The residents of San Marco, Empire Point and all along the route will be out cheering you on, offering water, champagne, cocktails and even mimosas. It’ll be fun. (Also donuts)

It’s one of the reasons the city should be taking more advantage of bringing over 30,000 people downtown. There’s some beer drinking at the Fairgrounds after the GRR but the general message when the run is over and the awards are handed out is: Go Home. It should be one of the two days the city rolls out the red carpet, closes Bay Street, brings food trucks downtown and entertains people for the day. (The other is Georgia/Florida). But since “River Day” went away in the early ‘80’s, that hasn’t happened.

There was a time when the Gasparilla race in Tampa was competing for a spot in the hearts of the running community. Both were in early spring and both were 15K. But the one thing both races had in common was a huge participation element from the locals.

Thee are two events happening at the same time on the day of the GRR. There’s the 15K “race,” the National Championship for elite runners from around the world. There are all kinds of prizes for the race. Based on historical times, the elite women start six minutes in front of the elite men. An “Equalizer Bonus” of $5000 is given to the first finisher, man or woman. Another $1,000 is awarded to the fastest runner in the final mile. This in addition to the $65,000 available prize money.

And there’s the “run” for the rest of us. Starting at the stadium, the 9.3-mile route showcases some of the scenic parts of Jacksonville around the river. From the stadium downtown, runners go over the main street bridge, through San Marco, over to Empire Point, up Atlantic Boulevard, over the Hart Bridge and finish on the north side of the stadium.

The staggered, “wave” start gives runners a chance to run with people going about the same speed. No bobbing and weaving around, or being passed by everybody from start to finish. Don’t worry; you’ll get to the Hart Bridge before the 2.5 hour cut off. The Hart Bridge is a 6% incline, a half-mile to the top and a mile from there to the finish line.

Six charities benefit from the GRR and there are more than 1,000 volunteers helping make the race happen. There are 20,000 bagels available at the post-race party at the Fairgrounds. You’ll see 1,200 traffic cones employed and 160,000 cups of water, 700 gallons at each water station, are available.

Don’t worry about being fast. When I was hosting the live TV coverage, I always argued that we were missing the biggest portion of the race by going off the air at 10AM. That’s because the average run time is about a 10 minute per mile pace, finishing after ten o’clock. Half the field is still on the course. So take your time.

Anytime the temperature is above 60 degrees F it’s warm and even feels hot during the race. Don’t outrun yourself in the first part of the race. Drink at each water station. When you turn from St. Nicholas at Mayfair east onto Atlantic Boulevard the sun will be right in your eyes. A hat or visor helps but if you’re not interested in that, stay in your lane and cruise up to the Hart Bridge ramp.

That ramp is a little steeper than the bridge itself and it leads to a mild grade at the foot of the bridge. Take advantage of that little respite after the ramp. Being a Florida runner, the Hart Bridge is like nothing you’ve trained for. So slog your way up to the top. Once you’re there, take a deep breath and look around. The view from there is spectacular. The final mile starts downhill, also a foreign stride to Florida runners, so be careful.

And when you turn the corner for the final 200 yards to the finish line on the north side of the stadium, see what’s happening. People will be cheering, music will be playing; the announcer will be talking about the finish. Keep moving and pick up your medal and drink some water.

You’ve finished!

Doug Alred “Runs” the Gate River Run

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Starting in 1978, with running for fitness in its infancy, The Jacksonville River Run, as it was called, was more of a competitive race than a fun “run.” Race organizer Buck Fannin recruited the Times Union and Jacksonville Journal as the sponsors, drumming up publicity and support for the run.

Using the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta as a model, the first race had about 2,600 participants. A pretty good start. Peachtree is 10K, and Jacksonville wanted something a little different. So they settled on 15K.

Marathon icon Bill Rodgers was recruited for the first race. He won, but then did the course again to complete his training for the day. Organizers paid him about $1,000 under the table so he could keep his amateur status.

Doug Alred ran that first race in 1978 and the next four as well. That same year, Alred, a CPA by trade, and his wife Jane had opened a store on Baymeadows calling it, “1st Place Sports.” They had sign out front labeling the store as “Your Running and Snow Ski Headquarters.” They knew only selling running stuff wouldn’t keep them in business.

“We had a store and were wondering how to get people in the store,” Alred said this week. “So we got involved in the River Run.”

It was a business that followed their passion for running. Doug was a pretty good competitive runner and wanted to keep it up. This was before running became a fitness craze, before Nike became Nike and Adidas was still a European phenomenon.

But to get the store open, Alred knew he needed the latest equipment, and Nike was about to boom.

“I knew we needed Nike in the store, so I met with their sales rep at my apartment and put together a big order to get us going,” he recalled. “But Athletic Attic got wind of the order and told Nike not to sell to us. So the salesman called and said, ‘Sorry Doug, we have to cancel.’’

Thinking he’d never get the store off the ground, Alred went to meet with his business partner Doug Milne to give him the bad news.

“I told Doug Nike wouldn’t sell to us because Athletic Attic put the squeeze on them. He didn’t say a word, didn’t flinch. He just turned around in his chair with his back to me and started dialing the phone. I heard him say ‘Hi Bill’ and tell the story. When he was finished he turned around and said, ‘You’ll have Nike next week.’ Turns out his college roommate was Bill Bowerman at Oregon, (the founder of Nike.) What are the odds!”

It was in 1983 that Doug and Jane were asked to be the race directors for the River Run as the day, the sport, the run and the business of running began to explode.

“River Run was born out of the first running boom. A competitive boom. It was a competitive race,” Alred recalled. “The first one had a very high percentage of out of town runners.”

Icons like Rodgers, Joan Benoit, Greta Waitz, Meb Keflezigi, Todd Williams, and Denna Drossin raised the profile of the Gate River Run to international status. Williams set the 15K American record in 1996 at 42:22. A time so fast that Alred went out and re-measured the course.

In 1994 USA Track and Field designated it as the 15K National Championship. Also in ‘94 Herb Peyton decided to get involved, putting up prize money to put “Gate” in front of “River Run.”

“We’ve gone through the dominance of so many countries and continents when it comes to winning the race,” Alred said of the GRR, now in it’s 42nd year

“The English dominated, the Mexicans, then the Americans and the Kenyans. We created the ‘American Cup’ awarding $2,000 to the first American finisher and helped to keep developing American runners. That led to the National Championship designation. Then we were fortunate to have Todd (Williams) and Meb (Keflezigi) dominate for so long.”

Now known in the running world as the “Gate,” the 15K here every March has established itself as one of the premier races on the international running calendar.

“One thing I wanted to do along the way was to keep it as a competition,” Alred said. “It started as that but there’s the fitness component. We try to roll everything into one race.”

While the GRR has an international reputation, it’s the local runners who fortify the day.

“We’ll have 85 elite runners in the field this year,” Alred explained, “But the number of first-time runners every year is a very high percentage. It’s more of a social event. It’s a bucket list item.”

River Run in 1978 had about 2,600 runners. The 2019 Gate River Run version will have over 20,000 participants.

“The biggest boom in running happened when women started running,” Alred said. “That changed the business. The first River Run had 85% men. This year’s Gate will be 57% women.”

Now in his 37th year as race director, Alred has a full-time staff of five dedicated to the GRR and the nearly 100 races they organize and operate ever year. Jane runs the now five stores that make up 1st Place Sports on the retail side of running.

It’s safe to say the GRR wouldn’t be what it is without Doug and Jane at the helm. Do they have an exit strategy?

“We’ve been working that way,” Doug said with a laugh.

Mt. Acosta Classic Is Something Special

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Now in it’s fifth year, the Mt. Acosta Classic might be the most unique and interesting running/cycling/endurance event in North Florida.

“To be able to have the bridge shut down and not have any vehicles on the road gives everybody an appreciation of how beautiful the city is,” said Marie McMaster the Race Director and an architect at the Haskell Company.

Well-known triathlete Jared Bynum was killed in Nocatee when he was run over by a car while on his bike training for his next race. Bynum was very involved in helping at-risk kids in North Florida graduate from high school and helping them continue their education. The Mt. Acosta Classic is held in his memory and through this year will have raised over $50,000 for the scholarship fund. Here’s how the organizers describe it:

“This scholarship fund was established to help students who complete the mentoring program at Julia Landon College Preparatory and Leadership School, go on to finish high school in four years and are accepted to college. It will help them go to college and achieve their dreams. Jared believed in being an encouraging and supporting role model for the young students that were a part of the school’s mentoring program. This scholarship focuses on those students who have overcome early childhood challenges and continued on through high school and to college. These students want to be something that they and their families can be proud of, something that brings joy to others.”

There are one loop (2.2 miles), one hour and three hour options, all starting at 4:30 PM for both cyclists and runners.

“As a participant in the run myself, the bridge is entirely different running on the road than running on the sidewalk,” McMaster explained. “The event is closed to traffic, every cyclist is aware of what to look for and we need the community to look after us as well.”

There is race day registration and the organizers say they’ll try to squeeze in everybody who shows up.

“One hundred percent of the money goes to the kids in this community, the future leaders of Jacksonville.”

And I can tell you from personal experience, this is a great event. Without any hills or mountains here in the Jacksonville area, there are cyclists and runners on the Acosta Bridge all the time. To get a chance to traverse the span, unencumbered by traffic, is something special.

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Gate River Run (and Race): Worth a Day

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It’s a well told story but worth repeating. When American running legend Bill Rodgers won the first Gate River Run, he went out and ran the course a second time: to get in some more training.

Rodgers helped put the “run” on the map as a “race.” In the time since, it’s gone from a local event to an internationally known race with premier prize money and a distinctive course. At the same time, it’s become a rite of spring and for a lot of locals, a yearly fitness test. Again in 2015, the registration numbers will set a record with no end in sight. “If we get to 20,000, we’ll probably have to cut it off,” race director Doug Alred said recently. “The roads in San Marco and in St. Nicholas couldn’t handle more than that.”

Doug’s right about that. Having run the “Gate” numerous times, somewhere in the middle of the pack, it’s as much of a social event as anything else. It has to be. The crowds along the neighborhoods who are IN the race kind of carry you along. The crowds in the neighborhoods who have set up lawn chairs, signs and make-shift water stations are usually shouting encouragement. Bands have lined the course. Marines and Army personnel have run in step as a unit, doing “double time” for 9.3 miles.

It’s become a thing for part of the more than 15,000 runners recently to make a splash in costume. I’ve seen “Thing 1 and Thing 2” running side-by-side. One guy ran in a banana costume. Firefighters in full battle gear. Somebody in one of those full body suits. One full cow costume, a chicken suit and every superhero imaginable. This year, two guys will run inside a replica of the USS Adams to promote and honor the retired naval vessel that could be a museum on the Jacksonville riverfront in the future. It’s a fun day, for most, and it’s a target for local runners and fitness buffs every spring. Where will I finish in comparison to last year? Will I run a PR?

Every time I ran (before Channel 4 started to televise the race) I finished somewhere in the middle. If there were 5,000 runners, I finished 2,500th. If there were 15,000 runners, I finished 7,500th. Because my times were always somewhere between 82 and 90 minutes. “You’re barely moving!” one of my serious running friends exclaimed when he saw my time one year. Which is OK. Because I was running with everybody else. A majority of the finishers are going to cross the line somewhere between 75 and 95 minutes. That’s the Gate River “Run.”

But there is a race involved, for sure. At the front of the pack, two-time defending champ Ben True will be a heavy favorite and even has been specifically training for this race. “I’ve had 42.22 on my mind,” True told me on Thursday. “I’ve been focusing on that number but with the weather forecast, that might be a challenge.” True was referring to the American record time for 15K that two-time Olympian Todd Williams set in 1995. It was so fast that Alred went out and measured the course again to make sure it wasn’t short. “I caught a perfect day,” Todd said this week. “I was training right, the wind was down, it was about 45 degrees and I felt great. You need that kind of a situation to pull that off.” Williams record is the longest standing track and field mark in the books. “I love this race and being a part of the community,” Todd continued. Growing up in Michigan, he moved here from Tennessee and has made Jacksonville his home. “The way this race has taken off from the first national championship in 1994 to now is phenomenal. People love to run the Gate and around the country and the world, the running community knows about the Gate.”

This is such a landmark for the year, I’ve never understood why the city government hasn’t embraced it more openly. With nearly 20,000 runners and another 20,000 spectators and family members downtown, why not take advantage of the built in audience and make it a festival. In fact, in the early ’80’s the city make the run part of “River Day” that included a full celebration of the river on the North and South banks with festivals, concerts and the like. Recently when the race is over the message has been, “go home.” For all the talk of creating a vibrant city core, why not show it off to the people who are already there? A set up similar to what we did with the Super Bowl would fit perfectly with the tens of thousands of people who are already downtown. I’ve talked about this with the last 5 mayors and all have said it’s a “good idea.”

How about we put that idea into action? Who knows, people might stay downtown.