12/30/2022
The 2023 10th and FINAL Mark Twain Redding Road Race Registration opens this Sunday, January 1st at noon and closes when we reach 1,000 runners.
SUNDAY MAY 7, 2023
https://runsignup.com/Race/CT/Redding/TheMarkTwainReddingRoadRace
Changes this year:
1. Due to parking constraints, we’re limiting the field to 1,000. Previously we’ve allowed for 1,300+ and have had quick sellouts, so you do the math!!
2. For my sanity (and my timers) we are limiting the races to the 7 miler and the Half Marathon. Unfortunately, we won’t have a 5K or the 5K add on for the Challenge Races. Pricing remains the same from 2022, despite significant cost increases.
3. NO DEFERRALS OR REFUNDS will be allowed this year but transfers will be allowed. No final determination has been made, but this looks to be the 10th and final Redding Road Race. We’ll see how it goes this year, but it has increasingly been tougher and tougher on my core volunteers and me each year. I rather end it on a high than fade away. Please don’t be sad, let’s celebrate the 10 races!!
4. For our final race, we’re bringing in a lot of celebrity runners. I can honestly say, there probably has never been a CT race with such an amazing celebrity field! Back will be some familiar names, Boston Billy, Joan, and Amby; and some new names, Patti, Frank and Dan. As our recent tradition, we’ll have a free casual 5k on Saturday the 6th with all of our celebrities running side by side with you.
As always, thanks for your support since 2012 and please sign up early, ‘cuz when it sells out, it sells out…..
Our Celebs:
BILL RODGERS
Boston Billy is best known for his four victories in both the Boston Marathon, including three straight from 1978 to 1980, and 4 straight wins in the New York City Marathon, between 1976 and 1979.
JOAN BENOIT SAMUELSON
Joan Benoit Samuelson is an American marathon runner who was the first women's Olympic Games marathon champion, winning the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. She held the fastest time for an American woman at the Chicago Marathon for 32 years after winning the race in 1985. Her time at the Boston Marathon was the fastest time by an American woman at that race for 28 years
FRANK SHORTER
In 1972, Shorter won the Olympic Marathon in Munich by making a move after 11 miles and running out of sight of the pack on the course’s winding roads. He was the first American Olympic marathon gold medalist since 1908. He won the 1976 Montreal Olympic silver medal behind a runner from East Germany, who was later implicated in the country’s state-sponsored doping scandal.
He won the U.S. cross-country championships four times (1970-1973), was the 10,000-meter national champion in 1970, 1971, 1974, 1975, and 1977, and won the 1971 Pan American Games 10,000 meters.
His Olympic success, along with the achievements of other American runners, is credited with igniting the running boom in the United States during the 1970s.
PATTI CATALANO DILLON
In 1980, Dillon became the first American woman to break 2:30 in the marathon. She is a three-time Boston Marathon runner-up and held multiple American and world records. She is the first Native woman to do all these things.
Catalano has held the World Record in the marathon and American road records in the marathon, half marathon, 30 kilometers, 15 kilometers, 10 miles, and 5 mile. Described as "one of the most dominating American female road runners of the 1970s" and "the queen of U.S. women distance runners", she was inducted into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame in 2006.
Catalano won five of the first six runnings of the Ocean State Marathon (1976-1979, 1981) and four consecutive Honolulu MarathonS (1978-1981). She also won The Montreal International Marathon (1980), and the Rio de Janeiro Marathon (1985)
DAN DILLON
In 1978, Dan won the US XC Trials race in Atlanta to earn what would be his first of several opportunities to represent the US National Team in the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. He later represented the US team in the World Championships in 1979 Limerick, 1980 Paris (best finish at 12th place), 1981 Madrid, 1982 Rome, 1984 New York.
After graduating college in May of 1980, he was recruited to join Nike's Athletics West team. He qualified and competed in the US Olympic Track and Field Trials in 1980 Eugene 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters, 1984 Los Angeles 10,000 meters, and 1988 Indianapolis 10,000 meters. His fastest track times were 13:33 for 5000 Meters in 1980 at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene (Ranked 8th in US by Track and Field News at 5K that year) and 28:05 for 10,000 Meters at the 1982 Oregon Invitational also in Eugene (Ranked 8th at 10K in US by Track and Field News that year).
AMBY BURFOOT
Burfoot won the 1968 Fukuoka Marathon in Japan with a time of 2:14:28, just one second off the American record at the time. He has a long history of competing at the prestigious Boston Marathon. He won the 1968 Boston Marathon with a time of 2:22:17.
Amby, an accomplished author has run the Manchester Road Race 60 times in a row winning 9 times.
