Full Bloom - Azalea Trail Run

Mar 17th, 2002

By NEAL McCREADY
Sports Reporter

In 1978, the Azalea Trail Run was first staged with just 800 runners and a few fans watching the proceedings in one corner of Mobile.


On Saturday morning, when the 25th Azalea Trail Run begins, that corner will be stuffed with 9,000 runners and much of the running world will be interested in the outcome.

"It's an American classic," said four-time ATR champion and running legend Bill Rodgers, who won the inaugural race in 1978 and has spread word of Mobile's fast course and endearing hospitality to the world.

The 10-kilometer race, which started during the running boom of the late 1970s, has grown in stature almost every year since its inception.

In 1979, Rodgers and Marty Liquori, now an analyst for ESPN, each finished the race in less than 30 minutes, the first sign the Port City's course was a fast one. By 1984, the event had an international flavor. Foreign runners' agents, seeing the times recorded in Mobile, urged their clients to incorporate the Azalea Trail Run into their schedules.

World-record times -- and world-wide recognition -- followed.

In 1995, Kenyan Joseph Kimani came within two seconds of setting a new world record in the men's open division, finishing the ATR in 27 minutes, 41 seconds. In 2001, Abraham Chebii and Thomas Nyariki dueled to the finish -- Chebii won in 27:26, the third-fastest 10K time in the world and a new ATR record, and Nyariki was four seconds behind, recording the fourth-best time in the history of 10K races.

In 1994, Mexico's Martin Mondragon completed the event in 28:56, a world men's masters (over 40) record that still stands. Five years later, New Zealand's John Campbell set the world record for male grandmasters (over 50) by crossing the finish line in 31:02.

Runner's World magazine ranks the Azalea Trail Run as one of the nation's top 25 10Ks, a lofty designation since more than 15,000 10K races are held in this country every year. Some 40 states and 15 foreign countries will be represented Saturday, including a field of more than 50 world-class runners.

The mild March weather and the scenery help but the times are what attract the world's best runners.

Ryan Lamppa, the media coordinator for Running USA and a United States Track and Field representative, calls the Azalea Trail Run course "the fastest course in the world." The course has been home to more sub-28-minute times (14) than any other road race in the world.

Californian Ruth Wysocki -- who set the American women's masters record in the 1997 ATR (in 33:22) -- loves the layout.

"It has a reputation of being a fast course," she said. "That has something to do, I think, with the scenery of the area. It's not just a long race with long straightaways. There is no boredom factor."

Rodgers agrees: "It's really pretty. The oak trees, the architecture, the azaleas are out. I like that. You really get a feel for the city," he said.

Lamppa is impressed that the ATR is going stronger than ever after 25 years.

"The fact that they're celebrating a 25th anniversary says a lot," said Lamppa, who is based out of Santa Barbara, Calif. "To be successful, you need a good core of people to make things happen year in and year out. They committed to have an elite field. Once that happens, people come back.

"Over the past 20 years, word got out to agents and athletes that there is a great race in Mobile with a flat, fast course. They wanted to check it out. Now these people keep coming back. The proof's in the pudding and the pudding down there must be pretty good. That's repeat business. Like any business, if you have repeat customers, you stay in business. It's not an easy thing to do."

Rodgers' love affair with Mobile runs deeper than the race through the city's downtown streets.

"I won the first one and got to know people. I was able to kind of get established," said the 54-year-old Rodgers, who is also a four-time winner of both the Boston Marathon and the New York City Marathon.

Rodgers hopes to win the men's super masters category Saturday but if he fails, he won't be disappointed. Instead, he'll merely clean up and spend the rest of the day visiting friends he never would have made had he never come to Mobile.

"We have fun there," Rodgers said. "As an athlete, you usually just think a year ahead. At that time (when he was considered one of road racing's elite athletes), I was just trying to win as much as I could. Our sport was in a different world then. Our sport went from the 19th century to the 21st century in about 10 years. With the Azalea Trail Run, you could see those changes."

On Saturday, there will be four races wrapped into one event. The 10K is the event that keeps Mobile on the world's road racing map. However, the 1-mile and 2-mile runs, in addition to the wheelchair race, have added a different level of community involvement.

The event truly begins Friday, with the annual health and fitness exposition at the Mobile Convention Center. While a medical contingent screens Saturday's runners, a veritable running trade show is held on the convention center floor.

The race itself begins with the wheelchair event at 7:50 a.m. Saturday. Later that morning, some of the world's top distance runners will take to the downtown streets for the 10K.

"Outside of the sporting aspect of the race, you're looking at a significant community event," said Azalea Trail Run spokesman Gerry Tomlinson. "It's become a part of the fabric of the community."

Wysocki can see and feel how important the ATR has become to Mobile just by the way runners are treated.

"There is something to be said for the cliché of Southern hospitality," Wysocki said. "The people in Mobile fit right in with that. They bend over backward to make the event special. It's the people."

Lamppa, like Rodgers and Wysocki, also knows there is more to the Azalea Trail Run's success than fast times and $4,500 winners' paychecks.

"I've been in this sport 10 years now," Lamppa said. "There are races like the Azalea Trail Run that may not have all the bells and whistles and the big purses but they have that down-home feel. They go back because they're treated right. It's not just about a paycheck.

"With runners, I've noticed that they tend to be more loyal to that kind of human interaction."

That defines Rodgers' feelings about Mobile and the Azalea Trail Run perfectly. He loves the competition. He longs to see how he stands up to the world's elite distance runners now that he's 20 years past his prime. However, there is an intangible that has little to do with competition that pulls him back every spring as Boston thaws out from a long winter and the azaleas bloom along the Gulf Coast.

"What's unique about the Azalea Trail Run is that so many of the good things in our sport come together there," Rodgers said. "It's more of a combination of things. I still like to go compete and I like the fitness part of it but it's great to see people having a good time. That's always there."