Road Mile, Donut Mile Added To Festival of Miles Lineup in St. Louis
The new road races celebrates the grand re-opening of the Gateway Arch Grounds.
One of the country’s most popular single-event track meets—The St. Louis Festival of Miles—is adding another day and two new races to this year’s lineup. In addition to a first-class charity track meet that features races for kids, the best high school runners in the country and Olympic level professional athletes, this year’s event will also feature The Riverfront Mile, a 1-mile road race for runners and walkers of all abilities, as well as the Strange Donuts Mile, which challenges its participants to eat four donuts during the course of the race. The track meet will take place on Thursday, June 2 at St. Louis University High School, while the road races will happen on Friday, June 3 in downtown St. Louis.
The new event celebrates the grand reopening of the riverfront as part of the CityArchRiver project with running, donuts, beer and a post-race party on historic Laclede’s Landing.
“We just asked ourselves how can we get people interested in this event that wouldn’t normally attend a road race and the donut mile was our answer,” says Ben Rosario, Festival of Miles Foundation Board Member. “Plus, June 3rd is National Donut Day!”
Since 2008, The Festival of Miles Foundation has raised more than $50,000 for athletes in need. It’s also seen some fast times in recent years. Last June, Grant Fischer became the seventh U.S. high school boy to run under 4 minutes in the mile with a 3:59.38 clocking.
“We work extremely hard to put on an unforgettable event for sports fans. Every year we try to outdo ourselves to make the event bigger and better than ever,” said Ben Rosario, Festival of Miles Foundation Board Member. “At this point you’d have to say it’s vital for race organizers to think outside the box and come up with new ideas to spice up their event. And that’s just the nature of the entertainment business, which is what racing is.”