The Spa Running Festival will add a second mountain to its half marathon route and welcome American long-distance runner and Olympic medalist Deena Kastor as the official race starter for the Nov. 17 event, its race director said Tuesday.
The former Summit 2 Challenge half marathon has been renamed to reflect its new route which will take runners over both North and West mountains, Race Director Cindy Baswell told The Sentinel-Record Tuesday.
The new Summit 2 Summit Half Marathon will travel from the Hot Springs Convention Center to Central Avenue, directly through Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs National Park and up Fountain Street to the North Mountain summit. From there it will continue to Whittington Avenue and West Mountain.
"We're pretty excited about this," Baswell said. "We've been trying to get that ever since we started the half marathon and we're fortunate enough this year that the Park Service partnered with us in making that happen. It will just make it a much better running venue for runners being able to see both mountains and seeing the different scenery. It's just going to make it a better running experience."
Baswell said the half marathon will not be any more or less challenging than the previous race, but allowing for runners to surround themselves with different scenery will make the race better psychologically than having to run up the West Mountain summit twice.
Registration opened in April and Baswell said there are already about 131 registered for the half marathon. While she said there isn't really a true limit on the number of entries for the half marathon, organizers are planning to cap it at 500.
Five hundred is "what we put on our application with the National Park Service," Baswell said. "Last year we had 345 half marathon participants and we thought this year if we could get it up to 500, that's a big growth. But when we projected that number it was based upon not having both mountains and not having Deena Kastor come in."
In wanting to take the festival to an all new level, organizers made plans to invite a celebrity guest and Kastor also happens to have Arkansas ties.
"Deena went to the University of Arkansas on a track scholarship," Baswell said. "Our other candidates were more of teaching the aspect of running, but she's a real runner. She's competing and we thought with her Arkansas connection, she is still actively running and, of course, just published a book that came out in April, we thought she'd have a bigger appeal for race day."
Kastor currently holds eight current American records from 5K to marathon, according to USA Track & Field, the national governing body for track and field.
Kastor will be the official starter of all three races -- the 5K, 10K and half marathon -- and be available for race participants to meet and greet.
As usual, there will be the Spa Squirt Race for ages 2-10 at 9:30 a.m. on Convention Boulevard, Baswell said.
Proceeds from the races benefit the Spa Pacers Running Club -- Buzz Wilson Scholarship Program, Friends of the Parks and Teen Challenge of Arkansas. The scholarships are a priority of the running club, she said.
"We gave 10 $1,000 scholarships for a total of $10,000," Baswell said of the scholarships awarded from the 2017 festival's proceeds. "We had probably at least 30 applicants of area high school students. We had some from all the schools and we're very pleased with that. We increased it this year; the last couple of years we've given $7,000."
Baswell said when she first joined the Spa Pacers, the group did well to get three applicants each year and award $500.
"To see how that has grown and evolved over the years ... the lady that coordinates it is Laurie Saracini and she has done an awesome job of really engaging the schools now, they know about it," she said. "We get applicants from all the area schools."
The Spa Running Festival, presented by Window Mart, will celebrate its 37th year as a 10K and fourth as a half marathon. Additional sponsor are Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield, First Security Bank, and Murphy USA. Baswell said sponsors have allowed the race to be successful monetarily over the years and she hopes to see the festival grow overall in the coming years.
"We're just excited to see the race continue to grow, excited that we have our partnerships," she said. "We describe our race as a small race with a big race feel with what we're doing. It really is one of the premier races in Arkansas. I don't say that just to be saying that; I go to a lot of races and the Spa Pacers compete in what's called the Grand Prix Series where we go to different races and compete with other running clubs throughout Arkansas ... there's no race that compares to our race."
Local on 06/20/2018