More than 500 children participated in the second running of the Little Manchester Road Saturday in Manchester.
The race, a version of the famed Manchester Road Race is a cooperation between the Manchester Road Race Committee and Fleet Feet Sports of West Hartford.
Stephanie Blozy, owner of Fleet Feet Sports, said the weather was great, there weren’t any bumps or problems.
“It went beautifully,” Blozy said. “It exceeded our expectations.”
The event featured three distances, a ½ mile, a full mile, and a two mile races.
With the Manchester Road Race slated for Thanksgiving Day, November 24, the Little Manchester Road Race served as a chance for children to share their parents’ experience without being around the hustle of the larger event.
The expectation for the inaugural race last year was for maybe a couple of dozen participants, and they got over 525. This year, the registration filled up by the middle of October.
This year the runners were surprised by three parachutists from Aerial Pursuits landing on the field before the race. Mark Krasinski, one of the parachutists, said they jumped from 6,000 feeet and open their parachutes at 3,000 feet.
Henkel, Shop-Rite, and Fleet Feet Sports serve as co-sponsors of the event, and all finishers received medals and sweatshirts. There was also bottled water and fruits available for the runners.
Fleet Feet Sports offered a training class called Zoomerangs, where children trained for the race by running laps, slowly building up their stamina and improving times. Blozy said earlier this week that the children logged enough miles in the program to run from Connecticut to Colorado.
A PDF of the names of all of the pre-registered children is attached to this story.
