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Maybe spring was just waiting for Bloomsday.Under cloudless skies, more than 43,300 people completed Spokane's annual road race and civic party, about 3,000 more than last year, said Jerry O'Neal, a race official and spokesman. Given the occasionally snowy spring, Sunday's sunshine left everyone elated.
From Superwoman to Uncle Sam, from green Mohawks to the Blues Brothers, Bloomsday has a way of bringing out the whimsical side of participants.
Three buses pull up to the DoubleTree Hotel in Spokane on Friday afternoon before Bloomsday weekend. A camera crew jumps out of each and starts filming as the other passengers pour out behind them.
Defending champion John Korir, the only three-time men's winner of the Lilac Bloomsday Run, will return to Sunday's 32nd annual running of the 12-kilometer event in search of another title.
Andrew Coleman had narrowed his choice of running shoes to two styles of Brooks - Adrenalines and Trances.
The 32nd annual Lilac Bloomsday Run is Sunday, and many Bloomies will arrive in Spokane today. You'll notice bigger crowds in shops and restaurants, particularly those serving the pasta dishes that have become a Bloomsday tradition.
For many Bloomies, slogging up the course's legendary hills becomes a feat of endurance.Try completing Bloomsday with muscles that don't always perform.
More than 40 years ago, Kathrine Switzer was the only woman running in the Boston Marathon – and she had to sneak in and avoid aggressive race officials just to finish.
The Bloomsday bug bit Victor Rogers in 2001. He was 90. This week the 97-year-old Kennewick resident and oldest 2008 registrant hopes to walk the 7.46-mile course for the seventh time – regardless of the weather.
Kim Jones, after dabbling in track as a sprinter in high school, had pretty much resigned herself to recreational running back in 1982, when she first saw television coverage of the Lilac Bloomsday Run.
It's a sure indicator that spring is around the corner when Don Kardong, founder and race director of Bloomsday, gathers his troops and kicks off another Bloomsday season.
On Monday morning, Geiger Corrections officials wondered what to do with the thousands of pounds of discarded running gear collected by an inmate work crew following Sunday's Bloomsday.
Mbarak Hussein had heard about the notorious hills of the annual Lilac Bloomsday Run. But after twice finishing in the top five of the Boston Marathon – a race also known for punishing hills – the 42-year-old runner from Albuquerque, N.M., didn't think the short, little race in Spokane was anything to worry about.
Nothing that happened on Sunday was unfamiliar to John Korir. The sights, the sounds and the feeling of crossing the Bloomsday finish line first – he'd seen it and done it all before.
Two trailers were piled with an estimated 8,000 pounds apiece of discarded sweatshirts, flannel shirts, fleece hats and gloves after the chilly start to Sunday's run.
Officially, 28 groups of performers – including belly dancers and bluegrass groups – received formal invitations this year from the Lilac Bloomsday Run committee to rally the 40,000-plus racers expected to ply the 12-kilometer course.
One of the largest contingencies of Bloomsday runners belonged to Tom's Team, a grass-roots group formed in recent weeks to help sustain 17-year-old Tom Everett's spirits.
First, Kenyan Edna Kiplagat held her ground. Then she pulled away.Kiplagat and Teyba Erkesso essentially ran stride-for-stride for the first five-plus miles of Bloomsday. Erkesso tried to gain some separation on Doomsday Hill, but Kiplagat kept her bright orange running shoes right on Erkesso's heels. When the two reached the top of the hill, it was Kiplagat's turn to make a move, pulling away from Erkesso to win the elite women's race in a time of 38 minutes, 52 seconds. Erkesso finished the 7.46 miles in 39:22, holding off third-place Emily Chebet by five seconds.
Walking with 3-year-olds can be a bit like herding cats, but it's all par for the course at the annual Marmot March – the kiddie version of Bloomsday minus the miles, the crowds and the pressure of a stopwatch.
Running might be the last thing on some folks' minds the morning after Cinco de Mayo. But for an estimated 50,000, today marks a different holiday – the Bloomsday Run.
For Bloomsday, more than 40,000 runners run the same course – and also pick up their race number in an organized frenzy that for some is almost as fun as the race itself.
There are certain things expected at every Bloomsday – Kenyans favored to win the elite races and Saul Mendoza finishing first in the men's elite wheelchair race.
There'll be some new, madcap characters at every mile marker on the Bloomsday course this year."Beehive Betty," "Louis Legstrong" and "Stroller Mom" will be among seven brightly colored metal sculptures created especially for the race by Annie Trunkle-Smart, aka Blowtorch Annie.
SANDPOINT – Thirty years ago, as he neared his 49th birthday, John Howard quit smoking and started running a mile a day. Two weeks later he was running Bloomsday.
One defending champion will look to hold onto his title and a highly decorated field of women will challenge for top honors in the elite fields at Sunday's Bloomsday.
We're 13 days to Bloomsday and we all know what that means.In less than two weeks, downtown Spokane will be oozing with a smug horde of shorts-wearing nincompoops who will pound the pavement in a transparent effort to make gravity-impaired sloths like me feel bad.
Procrastinators, listen up: There's still time to get in shape and get in the race. We're talking Bloomsday, the 12-kilometer Spokane rite-of-spring to be held May 6.
Judging by their physiques, they might look like the odd couple when they run races. But Bryant McKinley, a blind runner who was seeking a Bloomsday running guide, said his new partner is a perfect match.
Organizers of the upcoming Bloomsday run are seeking volunteers to help with check-in, T-shirt distribution and other tasks on race weekend, May 5 and 6.
Wanted: Avid, level-headed runner willing to guide blind athlete in Bloomsday. Tortoises need not apply.
One major change will mark this spring's Lilac Bloomsday Run: Check-in and the trade show will be in the new Spokane Convention Center Group Health Exhibit Hall.
There are a few more weeks of bitter winter weather ahead, but area elementary schools are already planning of a new season of the Fit for Bloomsday ... Fit for Life.
Online registration for the 31st Lilac Bloomsday Run is open and those who sign up by Feb. 18 have a chance to win a trip for two to one of Seattle's most popular races.
Richard R. Bloch's friends waited at the finish line for as long as they could Sunday. The 47-year-old man didn't arrive, so as the weather turned bad, the friends, who all worked at the Kampgrounds of America headquarters in Billings, left for home.
The chip went off without a hitch, although it rubbed some people the wrong way. That was the feedback Don Kardong, Lilac Bloomsday executive director, received about Sunday's 30th Bloomsday run.
Isabella Ochichi didn't expect to have to sprint to the finish. Not that it mattered. Ochichi, a 26-year-old Kenyan, held off a furious late surge from Ukrainian Tetyana Hladyr to win Bloomsday's women's elite race in her first appearance Sunday, finishing the 12,000-meter course in a time of 38 minutes, 38 seconds, the second-fastest in Bloomsday history.
The used sweat shirts were almost as popular as the new T-shirts. During Sunday's Lilac Bloomsday Run when the temperature stalled at 48 degrees, the sweat shirts traditionally flung into trees and onto curbs became a hot commodity.
» Photos: downtown | the racers | scenes from the course
» Multimedia: The sights and sounds of Bloomsday
Jeremiah Camp never thought he would win Bloomsday, especially while stationed at an Air Force base in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, where the course is flat with not a pine tree in sight.
A Bloomsday runner from Billings died Sunday at a hospital after being taken from the course in an ambulance. Witnesses say a man who appeared to be between 35 and 40 was running with his wife and collapsed about 11:15 a.m.
Last year, Gilbert Okari dominated the first two miles of the Bloomsday course, but all that earned him was a second-place finish. He didn't make his push until after Doomsday Hill this year, turning a two-man race into a 32-second blowout win over the final three miles in the 30th Bloomsday's elite men's race.
Ginny Warden, the oldest of 124 perennials who have participated in all 30 Bloomsdays, had announced Bloomsday 2006 would be her last. But after walking the course in less than 2 ½ hours, the 86-year-old South Hill resident has taken a never-say-never approach to 2007.
To a man dressed in an enormous, shaggy gorilla suit, a sunny Bloomsday is a bad Bloomsday. So when a light rain fell and a cool breeze rustled through the runners and walkers in the lilac section – the last group to start before the strollers – those dressed in costumes seemed happiest of all.
Another year brought another Bloomsday men's wheelchair title to Saul Mendoza, but the ninth straight one meant a little more. It breaks Craig Blanchette's record of consecutive race victories, which he set from 1987-94.
There is a common theme among the spectator parties that line the Bloomsday course: Everybody has a beverage. Be they mimosas from a champagne glass in Browne's Addition to coffee at a house on Lindeke Street, there is often more hydration for spectators than for participants.
Their T-shirts may be a different color, but the volunteers who keep nearly 45,000 Bloomies running smoothly are as big a part of the event as the runners.
Tiffany Degenhart got the runner's bug in 1986 when she competed in Junior Bloomsday as a sixth-grader. She's now married with children of her own.
Nothing like zinc-, iron- and protein-loading before Bloomsday. The Washington State Beef Commission is making it convenient to do just that by giving out beef appetizer samples at the Bloomsday Trade Show.
Don't forget that many downtown streets will be closed Sunday morning for Bloomsday. Government Way, Fort George Wright Drive, Pettet Drive, Maxwell Avenue and Broadway Avenue will also be closed along the Bloomsday race route.
Bloomsday is keeping up with the times. And it's going to help racers in the long run. For those who haven't been paying attention, every Lilac Bloomsday Run registration packet will contain a 1 1/2-inch wide electronic chip and an ankle strap this year.
The defending champions aren't returning, but that won't leave the elite field short of storylines and possibilities for Sunday's 30th Bloomsday. The women's race boasts a loaded field and the typical Kenyan contingent headlines the men's race, both on a new Bloomsday course.
They are the epitome of efficiency. Each weekday, a dozen or so reliable men and women, many retired, sort through Lilac Bloomsday Run registration forms, input information, double-check the data and fill envelopes with a bib tag and computer timing chips.
The inquiries range from the specific to the general. Then again, with more than 50,000 participants expected at the 30th annual Lilac Bloomsday Run on May 7, there are bound to be questions.
Go ahead Bloomsday athletes. Brag a little. Your time last year was less than your HDL cholesterol level. Your IQ is higher than the time it took you to walk the course.
The conversation was as brief as a seven-story elevator ride, yet long enough to get the idea off the ground. David Rodgers, Spokane's mayor at the time, was sharing a City Hall elevator with Don Kardong, fresh off his fourth-place finish in the 1976 Montreal Olympics marathon.
For its 30th year, there's a fresh start and a stunning finish for Bloomsday. Three major changes in the annual event, which will be held May 7, were announced Monday.
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