Runners take the first step of the 2025 News and Sentinel Half Marathon Saturday. (Photo by Art Smith)

Early last Saturday morning I stood proudly near Third and Juliana streets and watched hundreds of residents set off on an annual migration around Parkersburg.

The News and Sentinel Half Marathon and News and Sentinel Two-Mile Race is a tradition for scores of people who live in the area. They turned out en masse to run in a pair of races that are part of the fabric of life in Parkersburg. As sure as the return to school and the inevitable end of summer, the pair of races fill the street on the third Saturday of every August.

This year 877 people ran and walked in the pair of races. That’s a lot of people and is more than 20% higher than we had just a year ago.

For many, it was their first attempt at a half marathon, if you are one of the first-timers, you picked a good one.

All half marathons do not have the number of water stops that we have. Many full marathons for that matter don’t have as many. The more than a dozen aid stations around the course were staffed by people from a variety of local organizations. Many of the stops have claimed the same spots for years, passing out WATER!, and GATORADE! each August. They must be hoarse after shouting out the choices of beverages to the passing runners and walkers. Every last person you saw at a water stop was a volunteer who gave up their own Saturday to make sure your race was more enjoyable.

As you made your way around the course you might have noticed a volunteer at every one of the 70-plus intersections. Coming from a wide variety of community organizations, they helped to make sure that cars, runners and walkers were separated. It’s a hard job, some were on post all morning, standing in some cases for more than four hours in the sun.

Other volunteers helped at the finish line making sure people had a wet towel, a bottle of water and immediately got whatever medical attention they needed. Other volunteers gave people a finisher medal as they crossed the line while others got a snack for them.

Another group of volunteers made sure racers were well fed the night before with a pasta dinner and were able to recharge afterward with a pizza lunch.

For a lot of people, the race is a bit of a homecoming, offering people a chance to trade war stories about past races at not only the meals but also at registration. The camaraderie is very apparent at registration, when volunteers helped to register them. Some people have run the race dozens of times, including co-race director Steve Browning, who has run every single race. All 37 of them.

If you have noted a common thread, it is VOLUNTEERS. We could not do the race without them. This year we worked very hard to make sure we had enough volunteers to help in the different areas. We even had extra volunteers that we staged at the finish line. Volunteers of all ages jumped in to make sure things ran smoothly, even with the quick tear-down of the finish line that we did to get out of the way of the approaching Homecoming parade on Market Street.

I’m working on an ad for this Sunday paper to properly thank all the volunteers and sponsors who contributed to the races. They all play an important part in making sure that the races go off without a hitch and that people enjoy themselves.

Just as it is not easy to run a half marathon, it is not easy to stage one either. Because of the help of literally hundreds of people and organizations, it gives not only runners and walkers a chance to see what they are capable of, but also the city of Parkersburg a chance to showcase what the town is capable of when we all work together.

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Art Smith is co-director of the News and Sentinel Half Marathon and is online manager for the newspaper