Interview with Former Olympian Don Kardong, Lilac Bloomsday Run Founder and Race Director

"When the weather is that nice, it makes everything go smoother," said Don Kardong about the May 1, 2005, Lilac Bloomsday Run in Spokane, Washington. With sunshine and blue skies, participants enjoyed a beautiful spring day for the 29th year of Bloomsday. Held the first Sunday of May and founded by Kardong, a 1976 Olympic Marathoner, Bloomsday is now a famous annual tradition. Today, the race accommodates over 40,000 runners and walkers-from the elite Kenyans to those walking the entire 12k (7.46 mile) course.

Since taking over in August of 2004 as the full-time race director, Kardong had some key goals in mind. Foremost, he wanted to increase registration numbers. While admitting the focus is not on the numbers, Kardong stated, "Our main goal is to provide the highest quality event we can for whoever shows up." This year's event saw an increase of about 300 registration entries, with about 300 more people finishing the race compared to last year. "It's a small amount," Kardong said, "but we're turning in the right direction…We don't really know why it grew so big in years past, or why in 2003 there was a significant drop. But this year was encouraging. We want to stay in the 40-50,000 range." For this year's event there were a total of 43,842 registration entries, with 40,012 actual finishers.

In order to stop the decrease in participation, Kardong and Bloomsday's Board of Directors set out to multiply the entertainment along the course, create more of a post-race "party atmosphere" in Riverfront Park, and do a better job at promoting the Bloomsday Run and activities. On all accounts, the effort was successful this year. Not only were there twice as many bands and other entertainment groups along the course, but the party in Riverfront Park was enhanced with the presence of more food booths and festivities, including live music, to encourage participants to hang out after the race and enjoy themselves. The park was also the setting for a giant spaghetti feed held the day before the race.

With only two paid staff (Kardong and an office assistant), the Lilac Bloomsday Association Board of Directors, and 5,000 volunteers, each Bloomsday is a tremendous community effort. The planning committee met in the summer to strategize for the 2006 event, the big 30th Anniversary. Some ideas that are brewing now include the possibility of a different finish area. Kardong would like Bloomsday to have a more dramatic finish area by revising the course to end on the renovated Monroe Street Bridge. Finishing the race above the mighty Spokane Falls will appeal to a lot of people, Kardong believes.

Another idea that Bloomsday is considering is chip timing. There was considerable discussion regarding this for the 2005 event, however, it did not come to fruition. "Mainly, the cost and service we received from the company we were communicating with discouraged us from switching to chip timing," Kardong said. With a price tag of about $250,000, the move to chip timing would have increased the Bloomsday entry fee by $5-a 50% increase. With only a ten-dollar entry fee, Bloomsday is one of the most affordable road races around. As such, it is able to attract much greater community participation-especially family groups who participate in the event together year after year. Therefore, a greater entry fee would impact these families who regularly pay for 4-6 entries. (All children in strollers and persons in wheelchairs must also be officially registered.)

"The goal of Bloomsday is to have a legitimate high-caliber running event, to keep the community involved, and to provide incentive for their fitness goals…That's why we keep our entry fee low. Most events only reach runners. Bloomsday strives to reach a segment of the population that most running events don't."

Indeed, Bloomsday is committed to recording an official time and place for every participant, from the top elite runner to the final walker and those pushed along the course in strollers or wheelchairs. Therefore, chip timing is a complicated issue. The Bloomsday Run consists of 6 waves of participants. Yellow and green, the top two groups, include the fastest runners based on their projected finish times. To qualify for the yellow wave, participants need to have run in a previous Bloomsday at a 9:22-minute mile pace or faster, or provide proof of their ability from official finish results in a comparable race. Bloomsday officials will consider results from the previous five years in order to seed participants properly, according to Kardong.

The current Bloomsday timing system can have as much as a 5-10 second discrepancy between the official time and the actual finish time. Moreover, since there are four more waves which start 15 and 30 minutes after the yellow/green and their initial start time of 9:00 a.m., these participants have to subtract that delayed start discrepancy from their official times. The chip system would record a net time for each participant, providing more accurate results for each and every Bloomsday participant. Even green wave participants (who start at the same time as yellow, but completely behind that crowd) spend 1-2 minutes or more just walking (running is impossible in the dense crowd) to the start line after the gun goes off.

Another reason for the increased participation in 2005, according to Kardong, was because the promotion plan began earlier than usual-in January with the opening of online registration. There were a lot more radio ads with Clear Channel, the Bloomsday office sent out more regular press releases to keep up the media's interest, they advertised for three months in Northwest Runner, and overall were more proactive to promote the event in more ways and places. Though Bloomsday does little advertising outside the northwest region (preferring to stick to Oregon, Western WA, Canada, and the Inland Northwest region of WA state), only three states were not represented from this year's group of entrants.

With a budget of three-quarters of a -million dollars and eleven sponsors this year, Bloomsday awarded $75,000 in prize money (a tradition that started in 1983)-much of which comes from the sponsors, according to Kardong. In addition, there is a t-shirt sponsor whose logo goes on the thousands and thousands of finisher shirts.

"Some years we have nothing left over, or we lose money. Most years, though, we come out a little ahead, and anything left over is always re-invested into the budget for the next year's event," Kardong stated. Bloomsday also makes donations to local charities on occasion, and this year Bloomsday had an honorary charity, the Eastern Washington Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. "The estimate so far is that around $15,000 was donated to that, either from donations designated on registration forms or from the sale of pink bracelets."

The next Bloomsday will take place on May 7, 2006. Kardong says, "[For] the 30th running of Bloomsday . . . we hope it will be our best ever. I hope a lot of people from around the Northwest will join us."

Common questions Bloomies have, answered by Don Kardong:
1) Who designs the finisher t-shirt and decides on the color? "We work with an artist and review multiple ideas. The committee recommends and decides on a color, based on what hasn't been done in awhile and which will complement the shirt design. This year's choice was birch, which looks light gray. Last year was white, which a lot of people liked and it hadn't been the t-shirt color since the third year of Bloomsday. Next year, we'll probably go back to a solid color. But of course the color and design won't actually be revealed until runners reach the finish line."
2) Why is there no bottled water after the finish like in other races? "We have a water station after the finish, before the t-shirt lines, and encourage people to take as much as they want. We don't give out bottled water because it's a garbage issue. Too many get thrown or dropped into the river. This year the Riverfront park official arranged to have a Propel giveaway, but they ran out fast."