The fall running season will be busier than ever. There are 44 local races between September and the end of the year, with 12 in both October and November, according to CSN data. That’s the most since Covid.
Races are a mix of road and trail events and include a handful of new and traditional campus charity races. They stretch from Siler City to Graham, Bahama and RTP. Turkey Day has six area races; Dec. 7 is the busiest with seven races.
But the question is how popular will they be, how many runners will turn out. It’s a challenge.
In the spring only the older larger races like Tar Heel Ten Miler, Running of the Bulls 8K had big numbers locally, while smaller community-based races, mainly 5Ks, often had the same or fewer runners than the previous year. Trail races were somewhere in the middle.
One reason: two free sources of advance race information, Cardinal TC race online calendar and the print edition of CSN (5,500 copies monthly) are no more. See related story in this issue. Other running calendars and listings are available and CSN is online-only these days.
The Historic Hillsborough HM (Oct. 6), Bull City RaceFest (Oct. 20) and Durham 13.1 (Dec. 7) are the larger area races. The Hillsborough race had 510 registrations by Labor Day, compared to 288 finishers last year. BC had 1,269 finishers last year and Durham 13.1 577.
Runners will have more local choices than ever with multiple races on most Saturdays. Local races will need to get the word out or be left in the dust. Keep in mind, there are plenty of additional race and multisport options elsewhere in the Triangle as well, especially in Raleigh and Cary.
The Triangle has four companies that stage local races–Cardinal Race Services, FS Series, Young & Associates, Bull City Running–and all have a slate of fall events.
New races include Cane Creek Mountain trail race in Snow Camp and Durham Mural Tour. Both are 3.3m.
J.B.