Weekend events kick off local running season

WASILLA — Southcentral Alaska runners can get a head start on the summer running season in one of a pair of five-kilometer races scheduled for Saturday.

The Alaska Job Corps Center’s annual Student Government Association 5- and 10-K run, and the Curtis C. Menard II Memorial Run will both begin with mass starts Saturday morning.

The Menard Memorial Run, which is also recognized as the Alaska state championship for the 5-K, is typically hosted in late May or early June, but organizers opted to move it into mid-May this year.

“It’s a little earlier than normal just mostly so the kids are still in school,” Menard Run organizer Greg Goodale said about the event that includes an indoor kids run in addition to the 5-K. “We were losing a lot of kids to summer vacation.”

Despite being scheduled for one of the busier weekends of the spring in the Mat-Su Valley, Goodale said preregistration numbers are already ahead of last year.

The Menard Run will have competition for participants. Not only is the Alaska Job Corps hosting its seventh-annual event, but the Mat-Su School District Elementary Track Meet starts Saturday at 9 a.m. at Houston High School. The Relay For Life begins today and continues Saturday at Colony High School. Special Olympics Alaska is hosting its Torch Run and a bike ride from Houston to Talkeenta. Local high school track and field squads will be in Soldotna competing in the Northern Lights Conference Championships at Skyview High School.

“There’s conflicts obviously,” Goodale said. “We tried to coordinate it to where we weren’t too impacted. We do have better than average numbers for preregistration.”

Nearly 400 runners have already signed up for the race, Goodale said, and at least 100 runners typically register on the day of the event.

Ninety-six men and 125 women finished the Menard 5-K last year. Former Palmer High and UAA standout Jake Parisien won the men’s race with a time of 15 minutes and 10.8 seconds. Monica Tibbetts won the women’s race, thanks to her time of 17:55.6.

As the 5-K state championship, the Menard Run also includes a purse for the top runners in the event. The top male and female to cross the finish line each earn $500. Second- and third-place finishers win $250 and $100 respectively.

The 5-K starts at the corner of Lucille Street and Spruce Avenue at 10 a.m. Saturday, and runners will head down Spruce to Church Road, finishing just before the Parks Highway.

Registration and the post-race awards ceremony are held at the Menard Memorial Sports Complex.

There is also an indoor kids race for children 8 years old and under on the field turf inside the sports complex at 11 a.m.

There is a cost of $20 to register the day of the race. Registration for children 12 and under is $1.

Job Corps hosting

annual run

PALMER — The Alaska Job Corps Center is hosting its seventh-annual Student Government Association 5- and 10-kilometer walk and run on Saturday.

Registration is slated for 8:30 a.m. and both races begin at 9.

Those interested in participating can pre-register for the race for $15. Seniors over 65 years old and children 10 and under can pre-register for $12. There is a cost of $20 to register on the day of the race or $15 for seniors and children under 10.

Club features

200 kilometer brevet

PALMER — The Alaska Randonneurs is hosting the Matanuska Valley 200-K Brevet on Sunday.

The event, which the club bills as a tour of the Matanuska Valley, starts at 7 a.m. at the Palmer Fred Meyer. Registration begins at 6 a.m.

The 200-kilometer bicycle tour will take riders past Sutton before turning around and heading to the Motherlode Lodge in Hatcher Pass. The course extends to Big Lake and then back to Palmer via Fairview Loop.

For more information about the race and the club, see http://alaskarandonneurs.blogspot.com/ and http://sites.google.com/site/alaskarandonneurs/matanuska-valley-200k-brevet.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.