By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2023 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission.
WASHINGTON, DC (31-Mar) — Previous winners, national championships, the PRRO Circuit Final, a $50,000 bonus pool, and gorgeous blooms on cherry trees are all part of Sunday’s gala 50th running of the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Mile here in the heart of the nation’s capital. America’s most storied 10-mile road race is pulling out all the stops to celebrate half a century of running.
“Fifty years is not a trifling amount of time,” longtime race director Phil Stewart wrote in his welcome letter to runners. “To put it in perspective, over 82% of the entrants in this year’s race were not even born on April 1, 1973, when 129 runners, mostly members of the DC Road Runners Club, finished the first edition of the ‘Cherry Blossom Invitational Run.’ A lot has happened in the following 50 years.”
Indeed, nearly a quarter million runners –221,626 unique runners to be exact– have finished the race since its inception when Sam Bair (51:22) and Kathrine Switzer (1:11:19) won the inaugural edition of the race. Since then, six world bests and five American records have been set, and nearly $10.2 million has been raised for charity.
“We are very excited to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Mile this year,” said John Bratsakis, Credit Union Miracle Day board chair whose organization is the event’s title sponsor. “This is an amazing running event, and credit unions nationwide have enthusiastically united to be a part of it for 21 of those 50 years.”
Organizers could have celebrated their 50th last year had they counted the virtual edition in 2020 when the in-person race was canceled due to the pandemic. Instead, by waiting for 2023, the 50th edition and the 50th anniversary occur in the same year.
Front and center at this year’s race will be the USATF 10 Mile Championships for men and women. The women will get an early start at 7:18 a.m. before the men and masses at 7:30, and the race’s reigning champion, Susanna Sullivan, will be part of that field. Sullivan, a fifth-grade teacher from nearby Reston, Virginia, became the first locally-based runner to win the race since 1982, clocking a personal best of 52:32 last year.
“I mean, it’s huge,” Sullivan, 32, said after last year’s race. “Everybody knows what…
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