Thursday, January 8, 2015

In 2015 it all begins at Bowlegs

It’s 2015 and a new year of running in Tallahassee. Track season is still a couple of months and a few cold spells away. Racing on the roads never stops, though, and in this year as so many others road racing opens with the Bowlegs 5K Run For Scholarship.


The Saturday morning, Jan. 10, Bowlegs 5K will be the 31st annual running of the race. Florida State history professor Dr. Leitch Wright founded the event in 1985 as a run on the main campus of FSU. Ten years later the Bowlegs migrated to Innovation Park, where it has been ever since. Another ten years after that Bowlegs became a January race after spending two decades on the February calendar. It didn’t improve the racing weather, but it meant that many years Bowlegs would be the opening event of the running year.

Stanley Linton

It’s an appropriate opening in many ways. The course hasn’t changed since 1995, so you can compare your performance from one Bowlegs to the next, being delighted at how you’ve improved or discouraged at how you haven’t. You can also match your Bowlegs time against thousands that other runners have recorded in Innovation Park.


The course is also USATF certified, which means that it has been measured in a prescribed way, ensuring that it’s actually five kilometers long instead of a close approximation. Even when the distances are the same, road courses are different in terms of hills, turns, and quality of pavement. But at least two USATF certified courses will be the same distance. During 2015, if you improve your Bowlegs time on another certified course--the Trent Trot 5K, the Run For The Cookies 5K, or the Palace Saloon 5K, for example--you’ll know that it wasn’t because of a short course.

Lisa Johnson

Over a couple of decades many runners have had a chance to get familiar with the Bowlegs 5K course. The race starts on Pottsdamer Street, between the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the Seminole Golf Course. The runners head to Dirac Drive, where they pass the roaring cooling units of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. During the second mile the course plunges downhill then runs south on the low ground along Munson Slough. It’s a quiet road where athletes can contemplate the fact that after they turn around just north of Orange Avenue, they’re going to have to climb that monster hill they just ran down. Past the uphill, though, it’s a short run through Innovation Park back to Pottsdamer, where the race goes by the fairways of Seminole Golf Course one more time before the final turn into the engineering college and the finish line.


It’s not a fast course, but athletes have run fast there. Stanley Linton posted a 15:46 on the Innovation Park route in 2014, his third and fastest Bowlegs win. In the same race Lisa Johnson ran 19:18 for the women’s title. Linton won’t be back this year; his racing this spring will be on the track in a Florida State uniform. Johnson also has other business keeping her away from Bowlegs. Without the defending champions present, though, someone will step up and run a fast race. For thirty years at Bowlegs, someone always has.

Katie Sherron

30 years of Bowlegs 5K Run For Scholarship winners, 1985 - 2014
DateMenWomenField
16 February 198516:44, Scott Hinkle18:48, Darien Andreu153
15 February 198616:12, Rick Miller20:00, Janice Hochstein150
7 February 198715:54, Randy Jordan20:00, Sarah Patterson186
13 February 198816:05, Rick Miller20:02, Janice Hochstein220
4 February 198915:44, Rick Miller20:02, Barbara Balzer165
10 February 199017:28, Felton Wright19:30, Paula Johnson112
16 February 199116:15, Bill Crooks20:37, Tina Davies67
15 February 199215:51, Mike Macinko18:37, Paula Johnson81
20 February 199315:33, Gary Droze19:33, Carrie Hunnicutt143
19 February 199416:02, Phillip Healy22:18, Chateau Mangaroo83
18 February 199515:41, Reid Montini18:09, Jane Johnson158
17 February 199616:12, Tim Simpkins19:33, Janice Hochstein77
15 February 199715:45, Gary Droze18:20, Jane Johnson163
14 February 199816:23, Damian Wilson17:47, Sarah Docter-Williams104
13 February 199915:57, Robert Pautenius16:54, Breeda Dennehy-Willis77
12 February 200015:49, Aaron Scheer20:42, Laurel Slyck83
10 February 200116:48, Gary Droze18:18, Sarah Docter-Williams
9 February 200216:20, Thomas Kunish20:20, Allison Eagen77
8 February 200316:56, Paul Orfield21:15, Fran McLean76
21 February 200417:06, Adam David Churchill18:21, Breeda Dennehy-Willis82
15 January 200517:42, Art Remillard18:10, Sarah Docter-Williams72
14 January 200616:43, Shawn Patterson19:22, Stephanie Liles152
20 January 200717:37, Matt Mizereck19:02, Sheryl Rosen109
19 January 200816:32, Tripp Southerland21:39, Carly Thomas121
10 January 200917:59, Tim Unger20:09, Micah Adriani117
9 January 201017:21, Stephen Cox21:01, Lauren Switzer84
8 January 201116:38, Vince Molosky19:26, Sheryl Rosen204
7 January 201217:10, Stanley Linton19:27, Katie Showman166
5 January 201316:12, Stanley Linton20:19, Katie Showman110
18 January 201415:46, Stanley Linton19:18, Lisa Johnson168
From 1985 to 1994 the Bowlegs 5K was run on the main campus of Florida State University,
starting and finishing near Tully Gym, on USATF certified course FL88014BH.

From 1995 to 2014 the Bowlegs 5K was run in Innovation Park, starting and finishing near
the College of Engineering on USATF certified course FL95008DL. The course was later
recertified with number FL12001EBM.


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Posted by Herb Wills at 11:49 PM
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