Death of running boom is greatly exaggerated, Detroit event organizers say – Detroit Free Press

CONNECTEMAILMORE

Is the running boom dying?

Some trend watchers say it is. Sounding like the world’s last finish line is just ahead with headlines like, “How Millennials Ended the Running Boom” and “The Running Bubble Has Popped.”

Wrong. Just as Mark Twain once quipped about rumors of his death, the reports of running’s demise are greatly exaggerated. The number of runners nationwide in organized races waned just 5% in the last five years.

And some events are defying that trend. Among those still drawing hordes of feet are the Boston Marathon, whose 124th running is on April 20; and the Detroit Free Press/TCF Bank Marathon, always on the third Sunday in October, which returns this fall for its 42nd year.

Another event soon will show that road racing isn’t nearly dead in Detroit. Race entries are up about 30%, year over year, for this month’s Corktown Races. Those races are set to take place on the morning of March 15, immediately before the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, using the parade route.

As Detroit’s Corktown continues its upswing of new restaurants and residents, the historic neighborhood could have more than 4,000 runners traipsing Michigan Avenue for a 5K — that’s 3.1 miles — and then choosing at the finish line between the beer tent or a stage of kids doing Irish step-dancing in Celtic outfits. The start and finish are both in front of the historic Michigan Central train station, itself enjoying a makeover by Ford.

What’s true and widely misunderstood is that running as a sport ebbs and flows with the economy, says Rich Harshbarger, former race director of Detroit’s marathon, now CEO of Running USA, an industry group. The reason is simple, Harshbarger says:

Running is cheap fitness. Tie on a pair of shoes and go. Sign up for a few races with friends and you’ve been there, got the T-shirt, and feel fit.

That’s why, when the economy was almost done tanking in 2013, running peaked nationwide, with 19 million runners crossing finish lines across the 50 states, according to statistics compiled by Running USA, which receives data from thousands of races.

Since then, the number has dropped to about 18 million, as some runners flush with fat wallets stepped off race courses for new pursuits.

“There’s just a lot more opportunity out there in this economy, and a lot more ways to be physical,” says Harshbarger, a former race director of Detroit’s marathon.

These days, fashionable fitness options include Peleton — an indoor bike that, with life-streaming and on-demand classes, costs a pulse-raising $3,000 for the first year; and “class pass, where people pay for one yoga class, then one barre class, and so on through the week,” Harbarger says.

Yoga, alone, has mushroomed into an infinitude of types, some costly. Barre classes, which gained celebrity cachet when film stars in New York City adopted it, use wall-mounted bars whose origin was in European ballet troupes of centuries ago.

In Oakland County, the Brooksie Way Half Marathon in Rochester Hills has seen a mild slide in participants. It lost about 8% in 2017 and another 4% last year, says race director Deb Kiertzer-Flynn, of the race known for fall colors gracing a mix of pavement and trails.

Kiertzer-Flynn says she totally buys the theory linking runner numbers to the economy.

“Folks can usually afford a pair of running shoes, and they can’t always take that trip to Vail or join an expensive gym,” she says.

But when the economy is humming? “They are off doing a variety of things” other than entering fun runs. 

Still, insiders say there are pockets where participation is heading up. One of those pockets is 1-1/2 miles west of downtown Detroit. In Corktown, the city’s settlement of Irish immigrants dating to the late 1800s, most race volunteers are members of the Fraternal Order of United Irishmen, says race director Doug Kurtis.

“They’ve been part of this event since day one, 38 years ago,” Kurtis says. Last week, he donned an emerald green suit for a meeting in Southfield of his key volunteers, called race captains, at office space donated by the Barton Malow construction firm.

The Fraternal Order handles all administrative costs for the race, “and we have sponsors for a lot of our other expenses, so most of the race proceeds go to charity,” says Kurtis. The 5K entry fee is $40 until the day of the race, $45 for walk-ons on March 15 for the 11 a.m. start of the 5K (earlier starts apply to the 1-mile and children’s races; see www.corktownrace.com).

“I’m still involved because I just really care about the St. Patrick’s Senior Center, and all the women who work really hard there to provide a social environment and meals” for needy residents of Detroit’s Cass Corridor, says Kurtis, 67, formerly of Livonia, now retired from a career with Ford and living in Ashville, North Carolina.

One reason that some races have fewer runners is simply because the number of events has mushroomed. “In Michigan alone, we had 500 new races a year for a while,” Kurtis says.

While working as an IT engineer, he trained and raced straight through the nation’s running boom, which some say began when Frank Shorter won the 1972 Olympic marathon in Munich. Kurtis was an early adopter of two-a-day workouts, showing that his conditioning soared even as he reduced injury risk by limiting the distance of most training bouts. A six-time winner of Detroit’s marathon, Kurtis took leaves from his Ford job to become race director of the Free Press event in 1999 and 2000. That’s when he was created the course’s wildly popular expansion over the Ambassador Bridge.

As Detroit’s downtown fills with new and younger residents, Kurtis thinks some of those newcomers will turn out for the Corktown’s Races. “And we’re going to see more and more Ford people, especially when they move into the train station” in 2022, he says.

Across town in Grosse Pointe Park, another veteran of running and race management sat last week in her dining room with stacks of old photos and her memories.

Jeanne Bocci, 77, was once a competitive marathoner and nationally ranked race walker —  not to mention, a local legend for running six miles each morning to Grosse Pointe North High School, swimming a mile with the girl’s team, then teaching all day and afterward running another six miles home. 

As hard as that regimen was, so was overseeing Detroit’s New Year’s Eve run for a solid 50 years, a streak that Bocci says she ended this year in the early hours of Jan. 1. The race is one that she and her husband, Jerry, started by accident, when they invited a dozen friends over for a neighborhood run on New Year’s Eve. Within a couple of years, their street was jammed with parked cars and police were telling the Boccis the equivalent of ‘Don’t do this here, ever again.’

So Jeanne Bocci moved her labor of love to Detroit, where it grew by the late 1970s to 4,000 runners, all willing to dash four miles through winter darkness. In some years, each adult finisher was handed a plastic goblet of actual, albeit cheap, champagne.

“That was during the running boom but before all the other runs started up,” Bocci says.

Ultimately, her race moved to Belle Isle. Attendance began to droop. In 2018, about 600 showed up. Then, hearing that Dec. 31, 2019, was Bocci’s last year in charge, scores of her old friends showed up, many with their friends, some sporting shirts from decades ago emblazoned with the name of a long-defunct sponsor — the Hughes and Hatcher men’s clothing chain. That influx of old friends pushed Bocci’s last hurrah to about 1,000 runners.

Now? “I’m giving it up. I’m hoping someone else can keep it going,” she says, with a sigh and a smile.

Bocci’s race might be an endangered species. But Detroit’s marathon is still going and growing.

The event, renowned for its international course and novel features – including an “underwater mile” in the Detroit-to-Windsor tunnel — had a record high in 2015 of 27,696 runners registered for all events: the full marathon, two half marathons, marathon relays and shorter events.

MORE:

In 2016, that grand total dropped about 7%. But last year, it rose more than 2%. And this year, as of March 3, registrations are up another 7% from 2019 numbers, Executive Race Director Barbara Bennage says.

“All in all, we are doing great and holding strong in every race distance we offer,” Bennage says.

In a city that was on life support but now is on the rebound, running seems alive and well.

Contact: blaitner@freepress.com

CONNECTEMAILMORE

Read or Share this story: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/03/09/runners-club-decline-healthy-detroit-cheap-fitness-detroit-marathon/4984036002/