Today, seeing more than a 1,000 runners crowding at the starting line in the early morning darkness of a cold February Sunday morning, it’s hard to imagine that organizers of the Five Points of Life Marathon and Half Marathon were told that the idea of a marathon in Gainesville would never work.
“We were told Gainesville was too small, Gainesville could never support a marathon, which seemed contradictory to what you see every day in Gainesville, the number of people running, the young people who are looking for challenges constantly,” said LifeSouth CEO Nancy Eckert.
Eckert was part of a group of runners training for the Disney Marathon back in 2005. They were sipping coffee at Starbucks after a morning run in Gainesville, when the idea of “we could do this,” was first broached. Eckert said that talk may have launched the race, but its success belongs to the thousands of volunteers who work behind the scenes to make it happen.
“Every year it’s taken on more steam and a life of its own,” Eckert said. “The whole community has embraced it and gotten involved in this event.”
The course for the 5Points 5K rolls through campus, while the routes for the marathon and half marathon literally cover the city, including a section through The Swamp and a loop through the Duck Pond and downtown.
“We’re expecting more than 2,500 runners over the two days, possibly as many as 3,000,” said Five Points of Life Foundation Director Brite Whitaker.
While the race has grown over the years, Whitaker said the goals have remained the same, promoting fitness while increasing awareness of the importance and the impact of sharing life through the donation of blood, apheresis, marrow, cord blood and organ/tissue. It’s that cause that encouraged Jenna Fadely of Orlando to sign up for the 5Points 5K.
It was a year ago that Fadely signed up through LifeSouth with the Be the Match registry, when her father Jerry Fadely in Gainesville was in need of a marrow transplant and was searching for a donor. She wasn’t a match, but a donor was found, and her father received a transplant in May and is doing well.
“Somebody donated for him, and I’d love to return the favor to someone else,” Fadely said.
For Caren Rowe and her family, the Five Points of Life Race Weekend is a tradition.
“Every year we put it on the calendar and we plan around it,” she said. “We love to support local races. We love to run and do something as a family.”
This year she’ll be running the half marathon; her husband David and sons Dylan and Bryan will be running the 5Points 5K, while the two youngest, son Austin and daughter Caitlin, will be doubling up, running the 5Points 5K and then running in the Five Points of Life Kids Marathon with their classmates at Talbot Elementary, where they take part in the school’s Morning Milers program.
The goal of the Kids Marathon is for youngsters in kindergarten through eighth grade to run a marathon distance of 26.2 miles a little bit at a time. The goal is to complete 25 miles by the Saturday of the event and then run the final 1.2 miles, with every participant getting a T-shirt and earning a medal at the finish.
“It gives them a goal and brings them out of their schools and into the community,” Rowe said.
Five Points started the Kids Marathon in Gainesville and now has expanded to seven other cities in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, with more than 3,000 children participating in 2012. Whitaker said the program has had an even bigger impact in schools, with the Five Points in the Classroom program that has offered 25,000 students lessons on the science behind blood donation and the impact and importance of giving.
“We’re building the Donation Generation,” Whitaker said.
