Nearly 900 runners participated in tri-state Mother Road Marathon, which resumed Sunday after a three-year hiatus.
The 26.2-mile course went from Commerce, Oklahoma, through much of Route 66 in Kansas, and finished at Schifferdecker Park in Joplin, Missouri.
A total of 300 runners competed in the full marathon. Another 400 ran a half-marathon, and 200 ran a 5-kilometer race.
As for the hiatus, the Joplin Globe explains:
The first marathon took place in 2010 with nearly 1,700 runners, but the city of Joplin and sports promoter Dean Reinke, of Reinke Sports Group in Florida, ended up in a dispute over ownership of the “Mother Road Marathon” name and trademark rights. The dispute was ultimately settled, but attendance dwindled in subsequent years to fewer than 600 participants in 2013.
The new race organizer is the Twelveone Group.
The overall winner of the marathon was Scott Cichon, 32, of Pittsburg, Kansas, in a time of 2 hours, 47 minutes and 7 seconds. And check out his medallion after finishing the race:
Katie Kramer of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, was the top women’s finisher in 3:23:57. She finished fifth overall.
Ben Jennings, 44, of Brookline, Missouri, won the 13.1-mile half-marathon in 1:27:39. Aaron Hight, 37, Riverton, Kansas, finished first in the 5K in 22:47.
All results may be seen here.
Runners noted the hardest part of the race was a 200-foot rise in elevation about the 18-mile mark near Galena, Kansas. That is near the point where long-distance runners begin to run out of metabolic fuel.
If the Mother Road Marathon sticks to its early October schedule for future races, it probably will become an unofficial companion to the popular Route 66 Marathon in mid-November in Tulsa, which is about a 2-hour drive from Joplin. Marathoners need five to six weeks to recover from such a race, and the timing between the two events is just about perfect.
(Screen-capture image of Mother Road Marathon medallion from KSN-TV report)