JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The biggest road race of the year in the area arrives bright and early Saturday morning.
After two years plagued by COVID-19 precautions, the Gate River Run actually feels like the event of old. And that’s a very good thing.
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The 45th installment of the iconic race Saturday, which will be televised live on WJXT Channel 4 and streamed on News4Jax.com and News4JAX+ is scheduled to go off with the elite women just before 8 a.m.
Then, it’s the elite men, followed by four waves of runners who will flood the streets of Downtown Jacksonville and twist through the St. Nicholas and San Marco neighborhoods in an attempt to finish the 15K course.
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There are more than 13,000 entrants for this year’s race.
The field is packed with elite runners with Olympic experience. There’s $49,000 in prize money at stake that goes to the top 10 men and women finishers. And there’s a $5,000 equalizer bonus, too. The elite women get a six-minute head start of the elite men. The first person to cross the finish line picks up that bonus.
For the elite runners, the most significant change comes at the finish.
As runners get to the final steps of the Green Monster, runners will come off the ramp of the bridge and down onto Bay Street. From there, they’ll continue west before making a hard-right turn past Daily’s Place. The finish line now is near Gate 1 of TIAA Bank Field.
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The women’s defending champion, Emily Sisson, is back in the field. Men’s elite champion Clayton Young is out of the River Run due to injury. But the field is absolutely packed.
It also includes two-time men’s champion Leonard Korir and 2016 winner Stanley Kebenei. In addition, four other Olympians are in the men’s field, two-time Olympic steeplechaser Hillary Bor, Olympic triathlete Morgan Person, and 2012 Olympic 10K runner Diego Estrada. And then there is one of the greatest American distance runners in history, Galen Rupp.
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Rupp is a four-time Olympian who is running the event for the first time.
The women’s field is packed, too.
Sisson dominated the 2021 River Run and enters this year’s event as a favorite to repeat. Emily Durgin is one of two other Olympians in the women’s field. She finished third in the River Run last year and is coming off an impressive sixth-place finish at the Houston half marathon. The other runner with Olympic experience is Emily Infield, who was a 2016 Olympian.
There are streakers, 22 of them who have run in all 44 previous River Runs, and are signed up for this one, too.
As always, questions on if the course record will fall always loom large. Todd Williams set the men’s record (42:22) in 1995. Shalane Flanagan holds the women’s mark 47 minutes flat in 2014.