In its 32nd year, the Adam Brown Road Mile has the distinction, meet director and co-founder Karl Koonce says, of being the oldest "one-mile road race" in Arkansas.
Many still call it the Owens Road Mile, signifying the first race site. Lesser known perhaps is its origin.
Koonce, Lake Hamilton School's cross country and track coach, and David Samuel, then of Pearcy and now of Mount Ida, started the races in November 1986.
"It was moved to late August after the first year," Koonce said. "David was the meet director and I was his assistant. David wanted to find a place to have a road mile that would be a fast one. Within a few years David turned it over to me because it seemed that he would always be fighting fires out west with his job with the (United States) Forest Service."
About a half-mile east of Lake Hamilton School, the former Owens Road presented runners a downhill terrain for the first half-mile and two rolling hills in the last half-mile. In time, the Garland County road underwent a name change (Aldridge Road with the new 911 system) and lost its signature event.
"A lot of people moved down on Aldridge Road (and) it became difficult to run the race without traffic problems as there is no other way out of Aldridge Road," Koonce said. Donald Westerman, then assistant principal at Lake Hamilton, suggested that the races move to former U.S. Highway 70, Koonce said, and "the traffic problem was pretty much taken care of because we can direct all the traffic east bound while the runners are in the west-bound lane."
The race and its site were renamed in honor of Adam Brown, a Lake Hamilton High graduate and U.S. Navy SEAL killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2010.
"We felt that it was appropriate to name it the Adam Brown Road Mile," Koonce said, "not only to stop the confusion about the name but most importantly to honor the memory of Lake Hamilton's own Adam Brown."
Different sets of records exist for the original course and its present site. "It is hard to say how much faster Aldridge Road is but it is definitely faster," Koonce said.
"A lot of adults would prefer to run a 5K (3.1 miles) but I feel that it is a unique opportunity to run a faster-paced race, especially because (along with the Go Mile in Little Rock) they are the only opportunities to run a race like this," he said. "We have emphasized high school and junior high students because of that and it is also a good prelude to the upcoming cross-country season for those young athletes."
Registration today begins at 7 a.m. at the east end of Adam Brown Road with the first race, for open males and females (ages 16 and up), starting at 8 a.m. Masters (over 40) runners follow at 8:20 a.m., boys in grades 10-12 at 8:40 a.m., girls in grades 10-12 at 9 a.m., boys in grades 7-9 at 9:20 a.m. and girls in grades 7-9 at 9:40 a.m. A half-mile race for boys and girls 12 and under starts at 10 a.m.
The top five males and top five females per division receive awards. Four event sponsors are donating coupons or other items, said Koonce, expecting 250 or more runners today.
Six course records were set last year, star high school runners Josie Carson (Lake Hamilton) taking the varsity girls' title in 5:31.65 and Noah Eskew (Jessieville) the high-school male division in 4:27.96. Carson won the junior girls' title in 2013 while at St. John's Catholic School, again in 2014 as a Lake Hamilton freshman and the last two years at the varsity level. She and Eskew are three-time defending state cross country champions.
"We have kept the price of this event down because we wanted to give more kids the opportunity to run in it," Koonce said. "The $10 entry for individuals is one of the smallest entry fees you will find for a road race. The high school and junior highs will pay a group fee. Whatever small profit that is made on this event goes to the Lake Hamilton cross country program."
Sports on 08/26/2017