WEEKEND EVENTS FOR JANUARY 1 - 4

You can kick off the New Year with a number of options around the state this coming holiday weekend.  Most events are happening on New Year's Day. 

At 10:00 a.m. on New Year's Day, the Jefferson City Roadrunners are holding their annual Ring in the New Year Mile.  No t-shirts, no medals, no fees.

If you're heading to Kansas City, the Hangover Half Marathon & 10K takes place on New Year's Day.  There are very few spots still available.

St. Louis' Snowball Series kicks off with a 5K in Forest Park on New Year's Day.   Also in St. Louis that day is the Doomsday 5K trail race at Cliff Cave Park in south St. Louis County.

If you want to do something more leisurely, Missouri State Parks is holding guided First Day Hikes at parks around the state on New Year's Day.  The 2.5-mile Lake of the Ozarks State Park hike starts at noon. Registration is required, and can be done through a link shown on the webpage. There's no Ha Ha Tonka State Park hike this year.

On Saturday, the Time Travel Half Marathon and 5K/10K is being held in Parkville (near Kansas City).

On Sunday, the Shivering Icy Trail Run (ShITR) 1-mile, 5K, 10K and half marathon races take place at Creve Coeur Park in west St. Louis County.

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RUN FOR THE RANCH MARATHON, MARATHON RELAY, HALF MARATHON, 5K & 6-HOUR RUN (posted December 29th)

Seven runners from the Lake area made the trip to Springfield on Saturday to compete in the 26th annual Run for the Ranch Marathon, Marathon Relay, Half Marathon, 5K & 6-Hour Run.

Scott Page, Eli Wherley and Alysia Maschino ran the half marathon, while Carissa Wehmeyer, Curtis Wehmeyer, Charles Pitts and Nigher Alfaro competed as the Running on E marathon relay team. 

Here are our locals' results:

Complete race results can be found here. 

There were 298 solo finishers this year.  That was up from 268 last year, but the increase for the 5K more than offset declines for all other distances.  Here are the number of finishers, by distance, for the past eleven years.

The luckiest you-know-whats at this year's race have to be the six-hour competitors.  Had this race been held on Sunday, the temperature at the start would have been 69, and 36 (with a wind chill of 25) when they finished up.  That would almost certainly have set a RFTR record for the largest temperature drop during a race.  

For a race of this size, there was a remarkable number of states represented. Besides Missouri's neighboring states (AR, IA, IL, KS, OK and TN), there were runners from Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina and Texas.

For those of you who have been longtime visitors to this website, here's a bit of nostalgia. This year's marathon winner, in 2:58:57, was Gary Krugger of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Gary won this race in 2012. Here's an excerpt from what I wrote for that year's race:

"The marathon was won by Gary Krugger, a 27 year-old from Flagstaff, Arizona, in a time of 2:50:05. Gary's running background is extraordinary. He started running in 2006, and ran his first marathon in October of that year, finishing in 4:30:06. Since then, he's run 190 marathons, and 11 ultramarathons. He's run a sub 3-hour marathon in all 50 states--an exceedingly rare achievement indeed. 

Gary Krugger (December 2012 photo)
(photo by Fun Memories Photography)

In 2012 alone, he ran 42 marathons and one ultra.  Amazingly, he finished first overall at 16 of those marathons, and either second or third at 11 others. 

You can find a list of his running results and more at the website marathonmaniacs.com, which is the hangout for, well, marathon maniacs. (Those of you who were at Run for the Ranch may have noticed a number of runners wearing yellow "Marathon Maniacs" jerseys.)  Gary's page at marathonmaniacs.com can be found here.  (Note that he calls himself Gary "Cougar Bait" Krugger.)  It's interesting to read his comments about races he's done and the problems he's encountered during them.  Doing so many races in so many places, he's certainly had his share of bad days, injuries, and poorly-organized races over the years.  I don't know if it's the competitiveness that drives him to do this, or whether he's just chasing numbers (in my humble opinion, the worst reason to race), but it doesn't look like much fun to do what he does.  Just the hassle from all the traveling would be a huge turnoff. 

He had good things to say about this year's Run for the Ranch, though. 

"Had way too much fun at this one. Can't wait for another one when I get to hang out with the same group. It was kinda a crappy race for me. And by that I mean that I shat 4 times during it.  It happens. As dull as a loop course is, you do get to see your friends a lot more during which was a lot of fun."

Postscript:  I searched for an updated Marathon Maniacs page for Gary, but all I could find are statistics as of June 2015, when he was at 272 marathon finishes. (Marathon Maniacs is still around, but appears to have faded in popularity.)

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SANTA'S CHRISTMAS EXPLOSION RUN (posted December 15th)

Would you drive to Springfield and run in 33°-weather for a pair of these Christmas pajama bottoms? 

What if they tossed in a "sparkling" finisher's medal?

For ten Lake-area runners, the answer is/was "Yes!" That swag, plus an LED Christmas bulb necklace, hot chocolate, holiday music and a festive atmosphere, attracted nearly 400 participants for Santa's CHRISTMAS EXPLOSION Run in Springfield on Friday evening.

Here are our locals' results:

There were 326 and 57 finishers of the 5K and 10K, respectively.  Those numbers were up from 252 and 44 last year.

Complete race results can be found here.

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