Cardinal Track Club giving local community a good run

COMMUNITY NEWS

By Randy B. Young

Runners seem resolute about their opinions on most “all things running.” As it happens, however, most of these opinions openly conflict with every other runner’s opinions. Ask a runner what they find to be the best fabric for running shoelaces or the best headlamp for night running, and you’ll get a dozen different answers…from the same person. Runners are practical to a fault, given to routine, and hard to sway.

So, it’s all the more impressive how the local running community is concerted in its support and praise for Cardinal Track Club’s (CTC) popular Tour de Carrboro race series, now beginning its 21^st year. Perhaps it’s because the CTC is just as supportive of the local runners and the community at large.

At a gathering at Fleet Feet Sports in Carrboro this past Saturday, Cardinal Track Club handed out awards, mugs, and racewear to runners who had completed 2024’s three-race series and announced donations to Community Partners totaling $50,000. CTC has provided nearly $700,000 over the Tour’s twenty years to community non-profit establishments.

“This money goes directly to organizations that give back to the Carrboro/Chapel Hill area themselves,” said Tina Clossick, CTC Board President. “We look for Community Partners who can support efforts around healthy living…and who are doing good work in the community.

“$50,000 is a record for us,” Clossick added. “This year we did a great job being efficient with our funding to the town. We also have a great partnerships with Carrboro Police and Public Works, which gives us feedback about how we can do better, and that allows us to provide more funding for non-profits.”

“We’re non-profit, so we try to give everything back that we possibly can, CTC Board Member Wayne Eckert explained

A running relationship

The CTC (www.cardinaltrack.com) is a Carrboro / Chapel Hill-based organization dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of running. Founded in the late 1990s by Dick Forbis and Bobby Biles, Cardinal offers a wide range of activities designed to cater to various fitness levels, including group road or trail runs in a supportive, motivating environment.

For two decades, Cardinal has worked with the Community Partners to put on the annual Tour de Carrboro running race series, which is comprised of the Four on the Fourth (four-mile run), the Carrboro 10K (6.2-mile)typically run on the first Saturday in October, and the Gallop and Gorge 8K (5-mile) on Thanksgiving morning. Each race begins and ends in Carrboro, with race courses that traverse local streets.

Cardinal Track Club board members pictured (from left to right) are Tina Clossick (President), Wayne Eckert, Ed Billings, Peggy Jennings, and Paul Dupin. CTC board members missing from the photo include William Schmitz, Ana Jafarinia, Logan Klein, Meredith Bolon (Treasurer), Joan Boone, Carolina Avary, and Chrystian Kumnick. Photo by Randy B. Young

CTC’s Community Partners provide volunteers who work alongside the Carrboro Police Department, Public Works, and race sponsors. Current Community Partners include Meals on Wheels, TABLE, the Orange Rape Crisis Center, UNC’s Get Real and Heel, the Optimist Club of Chapel Hill, UNC Therapy, the Carrboro Family Garden, and Boy Scout Troop 845.

The Community Partners were unified in their high praise for Cardinal’s community-mindedness.

“Every dollar we get in donations goes back to our program so that no one starts our program and pays,” UNC Get Real and Heal representative Carly Bailey said. “This directly supports our ability to provide exercise programming for our patients.”

“What Cardinal helps us do is work with local farmers and provide food that kids need,” TABLE’s Jennifer Adams gushed at the Saturday event. “We’re able to provide high-quality food like you’d see at the Farmer’s Market—food you’d want in your home.”

Fresh out of the “gait”

Most runners understand that success in racing is a matter of pace and momentum, and Cardinal is racing into the new year with fresh ideas and fervor.

“One thing we did that was unique this past year was to score all three races in the Le Tour series,” Eckert said. “We saw 180 runners run all three races, which is a record for us. So we had a first, second, and third-place winner overall and in each age group for all three races combined.”

“Also this past year, it was we were back to the levels of pre-pandemic participation —pre-Covid,” Eckert added. “We’re hoping to once again to grow all of our races in 2025.”

Clossick noted that the CTC would actually be adding a 5K (3.1-mile) race on the same October morning as the Carrboro 10K.

“Yes, next year, the big change is that we’ll add the 5K race,” she said. “The course will need to (get approval), but we’ve already come up with a map that uses all but one tiny street from the 10K course. The goal is to have volunteers in place for both races that morning.”

“I think we’ll probably set the 5K and the 10K off around 15 minutes apart,” Clossick added. “5K runners will be going out really fast, but we want to ensure that the 5K runners don’t follow the 10K runners on their route.”

Clossick said the plans for adding a 5K in October took into account a wider community, including Hillsborough.

“The 10K is our longest race of the series, but the 10K has been challenging for those who aren’t everyday distance runners,” Clossick said, “so maybe more families will be able to participate in the race. Plus, it also helps us to support the Hillsborough Running Club group, who stages their half-marathon race (the following day).

“We have so many families that run the Gallop and Gorge together—it’s like a Thanksgiving family reunion—but if we can make the Carrboro 10K feel more like a family event where the community is coming together to run together, that would be exceptional.”

Cardinal Track Club board members (left to right) Tina Clossick, Wayne Eckert, and Peggy Jennings were at Fleet Feet in Carrboro to greet and celebrate runners who completed the three-race Tour de Carrboro in 2024. Photo by Randy B. Young

Those interested in the Cardinal Track Club and its 2025 races need merely ask around, as more and more runners are coming to enjoy a hometown, family-friendly feel to running and racing. Just don’t ask them to recommend a brand of headlamp.

A Dartmouth College graduate, Randy B. Young first worked as an award-winning advertising copywriter in New Hampshire, then in communications at UNC for over 30 years. He maintained an award-winning newspaper feature covering Recreation and Exercise in the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County. Retired and living in Chapel Hill, Randy continues to write for regional publications both locally and in New England, and his book, And the Stars Flew With Us, is available through Amazon and at independent bookstores. He coaches track at Chapel Hill High and has a photography business, Pierless (sic) Photography.