Not to make you feel like an under achiever — but — if you are reading this you are likely not at this moment running in the News and Sentinel Half Marathon, particularly if you are reading it when most people do, early Saturday morning.

For literary purposes I am going to assume that you are reading it at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Aug 20.

Thirty minutes ago, hundreds of men and women started the News and Sentinel Half Marathon, thereby returning long distance racing to the streets of Parkersburg for the first time since 2019.

The fastest runners are making their way up and down the small hills of Gihon Road. They will soon reach the halfway point around the UPS facility.

The slower racers are making their way up the first major hill along Route 50 after crossing the Little Kanawha River for the first time. They have, for the most part, already passed on Ann Street the first of 15 water stops before starting up the on-ramp for the highway. The water stop is staffed, as they all are, by volunteers. Those on Ann Street are from Dupont. They also helped get the racers hydrated before the race a block away at the starting line. They are one of 15 groups that gave up their Saturday morning to be the faces of the race and offer something cold to drink to hundreds of complete strangers.

Soon the lead group of runners will cross the busy Pike Street/WV 14 intersection. A police officer will have the intersection blocked for them. Traffic control over a 13.1-mile race is a daunting task. The City of Parkersburg does an incredible job making sure the course is safe for everyone. Officers from the police department, the Wood County Sheriff and the West Virginia State Police work together to make sure the key intersections are blocked. Volunteers chip in to make sure traffic doesn’t enter the race from the smaller side streets. There is even a group of volunteers on bikes to monitor the spaces in between.

At every turn there are volunteers pointing the way. There are also hundreds of large feet painted on the road surface. They are there year-round and were repainted in the last few weeks by the Parkersburg Street Department. The same department also swept the course, all 13.1 miles of it, with their giant street sweeper, and helped with barriers to funnel the racers the correct direction at the starting and finish lines.

Meanwhile, 20 minutes ago, several hundred other races began the shorter Two-Mile race from the same starting line used by the half marathon near Third and Juliana streets. The fastest of the two-mile runners have finished the race already, having crossed the finish line around 10 minutes ago. The slowest is somewhere on 13th Street about to make the wrong-way turn onto Avery Street. If they are really taking their time, they may see a very fast half marathon runner go flying by in the opposite direction.

Race organizers have now turned their attention to the end of the race. Right now, Two-Mile runners are crossing the line so quickly that it is tough for the person reading their names to get them all in. Their time is being recorded by a timer that uses a series of RFID tag readers to record when they cross rubber mats. The tag is attached to the back of the race number that everyone wears.

In a little over a half hour the fastest half marathoners will start crossing the line while the majority of them are still on the southside of Parkersburg. At this moment, however, hundreds of racers in two different races are running and walking in two different directions. They started at the same spot and will end at the same spot.

There are more than two races going on. Although most people racing try to beat the person ahead of them across the finish line, they are really racing against themselves, pushing their body to go just a little bit faster than it did the last time they did the same distance. Many can tell you their personal record to the hundredth of a second and they take great pride when they can shave even a few seconds off of it.

The half marathon and two-mile races are unique because they are so large. The half marathon to some extent takes up the entire town. They take hundreds of volunteers and have hundreds of participants.

If you are part of a group or an organization that helped stage or sponsor the event today, thank you. Your efforts help put on an event that has a reputation and a following far outside the city limits.

If you competed in the races this year. Welcome back. I hope you had a great time.

Art Smith is co-director the News and Sentinel races and is online manager for The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. He can be reached at asmith@newsandsentinel.com.

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