Glancing at the Road Runners Club of America's Club Running magazine for Fall/Winter 2009, I noticed Brooke Nelson's report on the RRCA National 5K Championship. What caught my eye was the description of Anniston, Alabama's Woodstock 5K as "one of the oldest footraces in the south." Now, "one of the oldest" isn't very specific. I don't know how any older races there have to be before your race isn't one of the oldest, but in Nelson's book it must be quite a few. Limiting myself to road races (after all, this was in a Road Runners Club of America publication), from where I am writing in Tallahassee, Florida, there are several races senior to the Woodstock 5K. Last month was the 33rd annual Gulf Winds Track Club 30K. Just over a week ago the 36th annual Tallahassee Marathon was run. In March the 35th annual Springtime 10K will be run in downtown Tallahassee, and in April the 36th annual Palace Saloon 5K takes place near Florida State University. At the end of April the 33rd annual Rose City Run 10K is scheduled just up highway 319 in Thomasville, Georgia. Later in the year, the Boston mini-Marathon (not to be confused with another race of similar name) will celebrate its 31st running. Tallahassee will host its 35th annual Turkey Trot and 31st annual Ultradistance Classic in 2010. I make no claims that these are the "oldest footraces in the south." I'm just pointing out that without doing any research I can find a heap of events older than a sprightly 29 years.
How many years away from being the oldest is the Woodstock 5K? We'd first have to know which race was the oldest in the south before we could answer. But a rather large 10K, the Peachtree Road Race, was first run in 1970, over a decade before the inaugural Wooodstock 5K in 1981. Meanwhile, Peachtree is not even the oldest road race in Atlanta--the Atlanta Marathon was first run in 1963 (one of the ten oldest marathons in the United States according to the Atlanta Track Club). That's old enough to be the Woodstock 5K's father. There may or may not be an older road race in the south, but the Atlanta Marathon already puts the Woodstock 5K an entire generation away from being eldest. Can it still be "one of the oldest?"
Looking for the oldest road race in the south may be totally irrelevant in looking for the oldest footrace in the south. For years any event at the venerable Tuskegee Relays (founded 1927) would have been much older than the road races I've mentioned. The same is still true for the Florida Relays. Just about any state's high school cross-country championship is going to be over halfway to the end of its first century.I'm not knocking the Woodstock 5K, which is a fine event. Indeed, it was named RRCA's 2007 Road Race of the Year. I raced in Anniston in the spring of 2009, and I was impressed with the amount and quality of preparation the Anniston Runners Club had already made to host a national championship. My problem is with journalists who carelessly fling about phrases like "one of the oldest footraces in the south."
Links:
- The "offending" issue of Club Running
http://www.rrca.org/downloads/publications/CR_NOV-DEC09_LORES1.pdf - Another excellent race in Anniston
http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2009/05/2009-anniston-lions-run-for-sight-5k.html - Online registration for a race old enough to be president, the 36th annual Palace Saloon 5K
http://www.active.com/running/tallahassee-fl/36th-annual-palace-saloon-5k-2010
Great post from one of the finest race bloggers in the south!
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