Photo courtesy of Vulcan Run
The Vulcan Run will celebrate 50 year's of history on Nov. 2, hosting the run in Homewood for the first time.
It may seem odd that runners will be winding their way through Homewood’s streets on Saturday as they participate in a race meant to celebrate the history of Birmingham, but this year marks new beginnings for old traditions as the Vulcan Run 10k makes Homewood its new home.
“We're super, super thankful for Homewood,” said Birmingham Track Club’s Vulcan Run race director Hunter Bridwell. “Homewood is sort of the central home to running in the Birmingham area, because you've got the Trak Shak right there. There's such great supporters of running in the community and certainly of our races, and that's where we do our Saturday morning long runs every weekend. We base that right in front of the Trak Shak there, so it's sort of home base.”
Beginning as the Bicentennial Run put on by the Birmingham Track Club in November 1975 with 221 runners, the Vulcan Run has grown into one of the most popular races in the Southeast over its 50 years in action. The run started as a 10K and 2 Mile run, and in the height of the running boom, Vulcan Run was also a marathon, half marathon, 5-Person marathon relay, 5K and 1 Mile.
In the 1980’s and 1990’s Vulcan Run was the premier running event for the South and had presenting sponsors such as Pepsi, Birmingham News, Sonat, and Subway. The event had upwards of 5,000 runners, including many from surrounding states who competed for top prize money. Numbers later declined after the loss of top sponsorships, and in 2001 the BTC only did the 10K and 1 Mile. The decision was made due to increasing police costs and a decreased number of participants in the marathon and half marathon.
Once the race was scaled down, numbers once again grew to 2,350 as Subway became the presenting sponsor, and the Mercedes Marathon was born in 2002 from what used to be the Vulcan Marathon.
The run has a long history of being a 10K State Championship race for the Road Runners Club of America, and in 2005 was the RRCA Regional 10K Championship before becoming the RRCA National 10K Championship in 2007 and 2008. In 2006, the Vulcan Run won the inaugural RRCA Road Race of the Year Award. This year’s race will once again be the RRCA 10K State Championship race.
As for the change in location, the race is moving to Homewood since BTC was unable to secure the necessary permits to complete the event in Birmingham.
“It really kind of comes down to just the available personnel in terms of police,” said Bridwell. “I think it's kind of been widely known at this point that they're very short handed in terms of number of officers. So we've kind of been battling that same sort of issue the last couple of years. We had it on our traditional course a couple years ago, then last year we were confined to a double loop 5k course the city had given prior approval to.”
Bridwell said it seems the city is wanting to consolidate any type of races to a standardized course or two. Since they’re not able to do it on the traditional course and this year’s event is the 50th anniversary, BTC decided to pursue other options and landed in Homewood.
“I do think that there is certainly some disappointment among those participants, especially those that have been long standing participants of the race, to not be able to run that sort of traditional area of downtown,” said Bridwell. “But at the same time, we're certainly looking forward to starting a fresh, new piece of this race's history and legacy.”
While the old course used to wind through downtown Birmingham, this year’s route will start runners in downtown Homewood at the plaza outside Rosewood Hall, going up 18th St. S to Central Ave. and across Oxmoor Road through the Edgewood neighborhood. The race will end back at City Hall, and the following festivities will be in Rosewood Hall.
The race begins at 8 a.m. on Saturday, and participants can register up until that morning. For more information or to register, visit https://runsignup.com/Race/AL/Birmingham/Vulcan10KRun.
