A national running club has selected Salina’s Crossroads Marathon as its 2024 USA MeetUp Race.
Team Take Down, an African American running club with members in all fifty states as well as other countries, will gather for their annual MeetUp event at the marathon in Salina. Many of the runners on Team Take Down have a goal of running a half marathon or marathon in all fifty states and reaching that goal is easier when you have others to run with.
According to Marathon organizers, in 2022 Salina Crossroads Marathon Co-Race Director Daniel Craig began reaching out to and developing relationships with over 600 running clubs in all fifty states, which included small local running clubs as well as national running clubs. That work has paid off with the announcement that Team Take Down, an African American running club with runners in all fifty states as well as other countries, has selected the Salina Crossroads Marathon as its 2024 USA Meetup Race.
Each year Team Take Down selects one race in the USA and one out of the country and put a call out to all their members. They typically have 100 or more participants in the marathon and up to 200 or more participants in the half marathon.
“We are excited to welcome Team Take Down to the Salina Crossroads Marathon. We appreciate the opportunity to help support their efforts to bring greater representation and diversity to the sport of running. We look forward to working with Team Take Down to make the Salina Crossroads Marathon an amazing experience for their runners,” said Co-Race Director Daniel Craig.
“For a third year marathon having a national running club select you as their yearly meetup race is amazing. It is a tribute to the amazing support we have received from the City of Salina, Salina Area Chamber of Commerce, Salina Downtown Inc., our more than 50 sponsors including Vortex Companies our Title Sponsor, and the community of Salina.”
The Salina Crossroads Marathon has already easily surpassed their challenge goal of 2,000 registered runners by March 31. There are currently 2, 382 runners registered from 45 states and 4 different countries.
Even though the challenge goal has been met, the Salina Crossroads Marathon is offering steeply discounted entries through March 31st. The cost to register prior to March 31 for any of the seven events (marathon, half marathon, half-mile kids fun run, 5k run, 5k walk, half marathon relay, and marathon relay) is $25.00 and runners can receive an additional discount by selecting “no shirt” during registration.
Runners can register via the website: runsalinacrossroads.com.
Separating out the race shirts from the entry fee is designed to provide runners with an extremely affordable race entry fee and helps to reduce the costs to put on the race. By doing this the Salina Crossroads Marathon can continue to provide 100% of the race entry fees to the Salina Family YMCA, Kansas Youth Sports, School Marathon Foundation, Salina Area Youth Sportsmanship Initiative, and Salina Burn Track and Field Club. All finishers receive a high quality finisher’s medal. Eric Montoy of Vortex Companies designed this year’s race medal.
The Salina Crossroads Marathon has a planning team of approximately 25 individuals, which includes local nonprofits, small and large businesses, as well as local runners. Anyone who has a passion for event planning and would like to help would be welcome. The Salina Crossroads Marathon will also need over 300 volunteers. Anyone interested in helping out can email the race directors at [email protected].
The Salina Crossroads Marathon is the Most Runner Friendly Marathon in Kansas. Salina Crossroads strives to achieve this by allowing registered runners the option to change their race distance at any time, defer entries to the following year, and offers race-day packet pickup. The Salina Crossroads Marathon leadership team would like to thank the community of Salina for your amazing support that has allowed the race to quickly grow into one of the premier marathons in the Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma region.
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About the Salina Crossroads Marathon
The Salina Crossroads Marathon began when two local runners (Chris Lehecka and Daniel Craig) started visiting about what it would look like for Salina to have a high-quality marathon and half marathon race. The City of Salina helped develop a fun and scenic course that minimized disruptions to traffic and parking in Downtown Salina. The Salina Crossroads Marathon planning committee includes individuals in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors as well as local runners. Andrew Manley serves as a co-race director and treasurer for the Salina Crossroads Marathon. The goals of the Salina Crossroads Marathon are to have a high-quality race that can bring in runners from across the United States, provide 100% of the race entry fees to local organizations, and provide fun family friendly events so the entire community can come be a part of a USATF Certified and Boston Qualifying Marathon weekend.
