10th Menard Run features new look

MAT-SU — The Curtis C. Menard II Memorial Run is 10 years strong. But this year, the 5-kilometer walk and run has a brand new look. The 2011 course for Saturday’s race will start and stop in the Colony High and Colony Middle parking lots.

The Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center served as race central the last several years, but the course — which covered Spruce, Lucille and Church roads — made for complicated logistics, race organizer and spokesperson Linda Jo Klapperich said.

Participants were bused from the Menard Sports Center to the starting line at Spruce and Lucille.

“It was a little bit of a hassle,” Klapperich said.

Busing participants created delays, and it was sometimes difficult for parents with strollers or those in wheelchairs to get to and from the starting and finish lines. Klapperich said the change to the Colony schools is the brainchild of longtime organizer Greg Goodale.

“He said let’s start and stop at one location,” Klapperich said.

This year, the course begins at the Colony schools and sends participants through a residential subdivision via Queensboro Avenue. The route weaves through to the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and leads runners and walkers toward Palmer to 49th State Street. At that intersection, participants will follow North 49th State Street back to the Colony schools.

The new course helps reinforce organizers’ commitment to make the Menard Run a true family event, Klapperich said.

“It is a family event, it truly is,” Klapperich said. “We have a lot of strollers, a lot of walkers. We want to promote it as a run and walk.”

The event is also a fundraiser for the Wasilla Rotary Club and a fundraiser set up in Dr. Curtis C. Menard II’s name. The race honors the memory of Menard, who died in a plane crash in August 2001. Menard, a local dentist, was very active in the community before his death. A father of four, Menard was president of the Wasilla Rotary and very active in the running community.

Klapperich said to further honor Menard and the 10th annual race, the commemorative T-shirt features a picture of Menard.

Another key part of the event is the school challenge, which awards the local school with the most representatives in the race with a traveling trophy. Klapperich said Colony Middle School is rumored to have more than 200 students and teachers participating.

The Menard Run is slated to start Saturday at 10 a.m., with the kids’ fun run to follow at 11. Organizers will host an awards ceremony at 11:30 a.m.

Participants can register the morning of the race. Race day cost is $30 for adults and $2 for those 17 and under. Children 8 and under can participate in the kids’ race for $1.

The Menard 5-K also features an awards’ purse. The top male and female will each earn $500. Second place and third place is worth $250 and $100 respectively for both males and females.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman s ports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/matsu_sports.