“Spirit Contest” Details

Here are the details for the “Spirit Contest” for the Unity Health System Rochester Flower City Challenge, specifically the Half Marathon (13.1 Miles) on Sunday, April 29th and how neighborhoods can win money.

The Unity Health System Rochester Flower City Challenge is a 2 day event (April 28 & 29th) with 4 events within it. The events on April 28th– the duathlon & paddle triathlon will take place at Genesee Waterways Center and will not impact your area. The April 29th events are where you come in. There is the Wegmans Family 5K and the main event – the Unity Health System Rochester Flower City ½ Marathon. Both start and finish at the War Memorial.

My husband (Boots) and I are donating monies to the neighborhoods that exhibit the most spirit during the ½ marathon portion on May 1st as part of the “Neighborhood Spirit Contest”. We will be donating $750 & $500 for 1st and 2nd place neighborhoods to go towards a beautification project in that neighborhood. The contest would be judged in two ways.

1. The primary way would be from select volunteers who will be on the course
2. We will be having a post-race survey to half participants naming which area had the most spirit.

What defines “spirit”? We shall leave this up to your individual areas creativity, but frankly skies the limit. The majority of these runners really really need your support and they love whatever you can dish out. Spirit includes having great music along the course, crowd support and cheering, signs, costumes, lots of noise, excitement, energy – simply put “A LOT of SPIRIT”.

These are the defined “Spirit Zones” – keeping in mind that they need to be clear because athletes may not know specific streets/areas etc….So these zones are broad. The Neighborhood Spirit Zone contact name is next to the zone. We also recommend that maybe you have big signs up that say “Spirit Zone 1 Start” and “Spirit Zone 1 Finish” so runner have something to read and know zones.

Zone 1 (Mile 1ish): Ellen Wheeler/Dawn Noto – Susan B Anthony Neighborhood from Canal Street @ West main through Madison Street. Time frame – 7:30AM to 8:30AM ish

Zone 2 (Mile 3-4 ish): Sib Petix – East Avenue Neighborhood from East @ Alexander to East @ Brunswick. Time frame – 7:40AM ish to 8:45AM ish

Zone 3 (Mile 4.5 – 5.5ish): Jimmy Catalano – Park Ave Neighborhood from Park @ Brunswick to Park @ Goodman. Time Frame – 7:50AM ish to9AM ish

Zone 4 (Mile 6.5ish): Dave Chappius – Swillburg Neighborhood from Goodman @ Pearl Street to Goodman at S. Clinton (at the Cinema). Time Frame – 8AM ish to 9:30AM ish

Zone 5 (Mile 7ish): Mary Staropoli – Highland Park Neighborhood from S. Goodman @ Crawford to the tip top of the hill at Pinetum before they turn down Doctors. Time Frame – 8AM ish to 9:40AM ish

Zone 6 (Mile 10-11ish): Colleen McCarthy – The river path along Wilson Blvd at U of R. Starting from Elmwood to the old RR Track past the Track. Time Frame – 8:15AM ish to 10:30AM ish

If you have any questions or want to contact your neighborhood head please don’t hesitate to contact me at ellen@fleetfeetrochester.com.