Little Rock’s marathon is well known for having the BIGGEST medals. Part of it is a response to the city’s name… and part of it is that the Race Directors are bonkers, always going bigger, better, crazier year after year. Geneva Lamm and Gina Marchese Pharis are the two executive directors of the race, a duo better known as G-Force. And each year they announce an entirely different theme, which makes for a whole new slew of swag, merch, decorations, and in this year’s case oddities for the race odyssey.<\/p>\n
The first time I ran Little Rock was in 2010 and it was because of the infamous medals.<\/p>\n
I came back in 2013 and 2014 because it was a pretty fast course and I did really enjoy visiting Arkansas’s state capital.<\/p>\n
2014 was a tough year filled with ice storms, plummeting temperatures as the day wore on, and ultimately a somewhat controversial decision to cancel the race in mid-running.\u00a0 A lot of us were past the sag wagon\/emergency buses so I actually DID finish that year ahead of the decision but some folks grumbled long after… something I didn’t think was particularly fair to the race directors who really only had the best interests of the runners at heart.\u00a0 Safety matters.\u00a0 Hell, though I made it in time to the airport for my flight, the snow\/sleet\/ice shut the place down and I had to scramble to re-rent a car and find a place to sleep out the night to catch a rebooked flight in the morning.<\/p>\n
I skipped a number of years mainly because there are so many races to be run and so many places to see.\u00a0 I felt like it was time to explore other frontiers.<\/p>\n
And then there was this year’s announcement for race theme.\u00a0 I think you’ll understand why I kinda love these people and why I decided maybe it was time to make contact once again.<\/p>\n