By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph hosts its first marathon Saturday morning with city officials hopeful the city can accommodate the more than 500 runners and not disrupt traffic too severely.
St. Joseph City Manager Bryan Carter says this is a huge undertaking for the city, especially with the logistics of making sure the route is safe for the runners and not too inconvenient for the residents.
“We’re trying to make sure that we can get the roads closed where they need to be for those runners to proceed while not making it a significant inconvenience to the rest of the community,” Carter tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “We can’t shut down a third of the city on a Saturday to accommodate a marathon. So, we have to find a way to make the two things to work together.”
The route begins at Civic Center Park. It mostly follows the Parkway system, but as it emerges from the north end of St. Joseph, it does weave through Ashland Avenue onto Noyes Boulevard before resuming its route on the parkway system to south St. Joseph.
Carter says the parkway system offers the city a unique venue for the races.
“Now, it’s going to have an impact,” Carter cautions. “People use the parkway for transportation every day. So, there’s definitely going to be an impact. But, for the most part, you can close most of the parkway without significantly impacting the community.”
Carter says the city hopes to balance the safety of the runners with the transportation needs of the city. Carter has high hopes for this event.
“The goal here is to make this thing a success, make it something that the people who come here, who run here, that they want to come back for,” Carter says. “That they enjoy being in St. Joe, they enjoy running on the parkway, seeing the parkway.”
Carter says making this an annual event could have a significant impact on the city.
“The running community is huge and they travel. How do we make sure that they come back here?” Carter says that is a question that planners have been asking themselves. “From what I understand, there are runners from 25 or 26 states will be in town. We have to capitalize on that. We have to make the best experience we possibly can for them.”
Runners taking on the marathon and half-marathon begin their race at 7am Saturday. The 10K begins at 7:30am with the 5K beginning 15 minutes later.