Busy weekend will test hearts, legs of athletes

The Vicky Keller Remembrance Run and City of Roses Half Marathon are on tap.

By Toby Carrig ~ Southeast Missourian

There's a word for people who might be tempted to run Cape Girardeau's two high-profile running events this weekend.

Stout or crazy, depending on your perspective.

"That's a lot of distance running in a short time," said Chuck Dobbs, who is directing Sunday's City of Roses Half Marathon. "There are a couple people doing both."

The first race on the weekend twinbill is this evening's fifth annual Vicky Keller Remembrance Run. With a 4:30 p.m. start, runners will travel 5.35 miles, starting from the corner of Broadway and Main streets to Cape Rock Park and back. The race will run on the course used for Riverfest, which was last raced in 1999.

"It's a beautiful and very challenging course," Dobbs said. "It's a lot hillier than the half marathon."

The Keller run is for Vicky Keller, who coordinated the Riverfest races along with her husband, Ron Keller. The event originally helped finance college for two Keller children who were in college when Vicky Keller died suddenly in August of 1999 from the heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This year, proceeds will go to the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Associaition.

"Mom didn't know she had it," said Amber Wilson, who is helping to coordinate the race with her father and her sister, Carlen Mulholland. "It's a big deal for athletes. You can run and be active and not realize you have it.

"We lost somebody very special too soon."

The event also includes a one-mile noncompetitive fun run and walk. A meal and awards ceremony at Buckner's follows the race.

Wilson expects between 100 and 150 runners to participate.

Race-day registration is $19 for the 5.35-mile race and $14 mile for the one-mile event.

The 24th annual City of Roses Half Marathon also will run over a new course this year.

"This will be a more scenic run by a lot of historic landmarks in Cape," Dobbs said. "It breaks the monotony. On the old course, the scenery wasn't much to be desired. It was flat and fast but the feedback we were getting from the runners, they wanted to see more of Cape. It's slightly more hilly and a little more challenging."

The 13.1-mile course still will head south from Arena Park, where the race finishes, but this year will turn east, run under the Emerson Memorial Bridge, loop downtown and pass by the Missouri entrance to the bridge on the way back to the Cape LaCroix Recreation Trail.

Dobbs estimates 50 to 70 volunteers -- many from local cross country teams and other clubs at local high schools and Southeast Missouri State -- will assist.

"It's a good volunteer turnout," Dobbs said, "and without the volunteers, this couldn't be put on."

Southeast cross country runners will be able to cheer on their coach. Defending champion Eric Heins, who won the St. Louis Marathon earlier this year, has registered. He won in about 1 hour, 10 minutes last year, Dobbs said.

"I can see him running a little faster this year," Dobbs said. "It's pretty nice to have a runner of that caliber in the race."

Dobbs expects between 150 and 200 runners to take part, many using the event in training for the Chicago Marathon set for Oct. 9.

Walkers and noncompetitive runners -- about 10 percent of the field -- take off at 6 a.m. with the bulk taking off at 7 a.m.

Registration opens 5:30 a.m. Sunday, when the entry fee is $25. The Cape Road Runners will make a donation from the proceeds to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.