By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The St. Joseph Sports Commission is celebrating another successful marathon.
Director Brett Esely says he determines the success of an event on how participants felt and says he received several positive comments from attendees on Saturday.
Esely says it was another record year for attendance in the marathon
"We ended up with 635 folks that registered for the event, and that included roughly 100 marathoners, 210 half marathoners, we had a record number of 10kers this year with over 150, roughly 150 5kers, and then a handful of virtual participants as well,” Esely tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “So that’s up slightly from last year, each year that registration number continues to climb.”
Esely says the hope though is the event will continue to grow, with hopes of one day having over 1,000 runners participating in the race
"But for us to get there we’ve got to find a way to get at least 350 more folks registered for a race, is it possible, yes, is there a magic potion for that, no, I think there’s a number of different ways we can do that,” Esely explains. “I think a great goal for us moving forward is to find another race that wants to partner with us in marketing, you see that a lot in series racing, whether that be in locales that are close together or locales that have similar themes for their race.”
Esely says finding a race to partner up with, providing incentives to participate in both races, could draw more runners looking for things like that to St. Joseph for the marathon.
Runners from 20 states and two countries participated in the St. Joseph Marathon on Saturday, some qualifying for a spot in the Boston Marathon.
Esely says there are several factors to consider qualifying for the Boston Marathon, such as age and gender.
"Our winner of the marathon on the men’s side, and our overall winner, William Henry actually was the winner in our inaugural year, so pretty cool that he came back and ran the race two years later,” Esely says. “He ran in two hours and forty-five minutes, which that is definitely a Boston qualifying time for somebody his age, so definitely one for sure.”
Esely reports overall from the marathon there were seven total qualifiers for the Boston Marathon, with four women qualifying and three men.
The Boston Marathon will be held in April next year.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.