The 9th Annual AthHalf Half Marathon is this weekend. The race is Sunday at 7:30 am and the 5K takes place Saturday at 2:30 pm. Runners can still register in person at the accompanying Health and Fitness on Saturday from noon to 6 pm at the Classic Center. There is not half marathon race day registration. Jill Helme is executive director of AthFest Educates, the nonprofit benefiting from the race.
“Over the span of that race weekend, we’ll have somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,300 runners who come out to actually run and participate in the races and tons of community members who come out along the race routes and cheer folks on and live bands that are playing,” Helme said. “It takes over 290 volunteers to pull this off and so we definitely need more volunteers. It’s early in the morning, so you get plenty of people out there in their robes and slippers cheering the runners on and the runners love it.”
Ath Fest Educates has donated more than $300,000 in grants to local programs supporting music and arts education for youth.