Race gets postponed again
Official hopeful vaccine will allow run on Sept. 25
There are still plans to hold the 43rd Freihofer’s Run for Women in person this year after last year’s race was turned into a virtual event because of the coronavirus pandemic.
It will just be in the fall, instead of the traditional date in the spring.
Freihofer’s officials said Monday they’re postponing the race that draws thousands to downtown Albany from June 5 to Sept. 25 because of COVID -19. There will be a 5K, Junior 3K and Kids’ Run featuring Centers for Disease Control and state-mandated safety measures.
“We thought, gosh, if we push it off a little bit into the fall, more people will be vaccinated,” event director Kristen Hislop said. “We really felt, in the end, it would be closer to normal — we keep talking about the new normal — but closer to what people expect at a road race if we postponed it until September.”
The Freihofer’s Run will still offer a virtual option from Sept. 20 to 26 in which competitors can pick any course or day they want.
Last year, Freihofer’s officials briefly considered moving the in-person race to the fall before realizing it wasn’t possible.
“Certainly, this year it’s changed dramatically,” Hislop said. “Last year, we had no idea what this pandemic was going to look like and a lot of people certainly thought last fall that by now we were going to be a lot further along. I think now that the vaccine is out there, more and more people in New York are able to get it. Nationally, we should be seeing a turn in the number of people vaccinated. That just made us more comfortable.”
She said it’s possible the Freihofer’s could require vaccinations for people to enter the in-person event. She said
their advisory board, which includes an epidemiologist, discussed it.
She said at this point, the Freihofer’s will require competitors to wear masks. There won’t be traditional water stops with volunteers handing out cups. Instead, runners will have the ability to refill their own bottles.
“I think we’ll take a lead off other events, too, to see what happens as we go forward,” she said. “Because we can be outside, I think we can keep it very safe with masks and social distancing and staggered starts and things like that.”
Hislop ran on Saturday in Schenectady’s Electric City 5 Miler, in which a few runners started every 10 seconds.
“It works really, really nicely,” she said. “The whole time I was running, I got passed by a couple of people. I passed a couple of people. I never actually ran with anybody and for a while I felt I was all by myself. It gives that nice flow. And because it’s a 5K, we can still accommodate all speeds.”
Troy native Linda Campbell, 67, has
competed in every Freihofer’s Run since the race began in 1979. But Campbell, who now lives in Kissimmee, Fla., said she’s leaning toward completing this year’s event virtually from Florida.
“I’d really like to be there, but I just don’t know yet,” said Campbell, who has been vaccinated. “They’re not encouraging travel at this time. I’m not sure about going all the way up there, but I have every intention to participate — one way or the other.”
Campbell was among thousands of past participants surveyed to gauge how they felt about running the race in person during a pandemic. Fifty percent said they would come back to a race in June, while 35 percent said they’d prefer to go virtual, said Hislop.
The start of the popular Training Challenge will be delayed until July 12, which will begin an 11-week program for runners of all abilities.