by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
The date of the Carrabba’s Summer Beach Run always depends on the tides. Since switching to a Jacksonville Beach-only, out-and-back format many years ago, staging the popular run during a low tide has become even more important.
This year’s run is set for Sept. 15, the latest in the history of the race.
“It’s the latest by a couple of weeks,” said John TenBroeck, a founding member of the Jacksonville Track Club. “We have never had it past September 8.”
TenBroeck has only run four or five Summer Beach Runs over the years — and those were in the early days of the race — but he’s been actively involved in the race for many more and serves as the official starter.
The Sept. 15 date also falls in the heart of the college football season. The University of Florida hosts Tennessee at 2:30 that afternoon and TenBroeck — a UF graduate and huge Gators fan — says a certain number of runners will go to the game and miss the race while another segment will stay in Jacksonville, watch the game on TV and may be unable to run five miles for various reasons.
“Some will skip the race, but not as many as if we had it on a Saturday when the Jaguars are hosting an exhibition game,” he said, adding there is also a scheduling conflict with the Seawalk Pavilion in Jacksonville Beach on the previous Saturday when the tides would be conducive for holding the run. “We did not want to hook up with the Labor Day activities. We have done that two or three times over the years and that has hurt us.”
TenBroeck says the race draws about a 1,000 each year, which is down from mid-1980s when the race drew well over 2,000 a year. Today, he says, many runners opt to run just one or two races a year — usually the Gate River Run and one other — and with so many races spread across all of Northeast Florida, participation in the Summer Beach Run has leveled off.
For the first 20-plus years of the Summer Beach Run, the race was a five-mile straight shot from the southern tip of Hannah Park to the Jacksonville Beach lifeguard station. While runners and beaches residents may have enjoyed running through each of the beach cities, that format became a logistical nightmare. Shuttle buses transported runners from parking lots in Jacksonville Beach to the starting line before the race while post-race shuttle buses took runners who parked in Hannah Park back to their cars. The buses were expensive and too many times runners missed either the pre-race or post-race bus.
Today, the race has grown to much more than a five-mile jog down the beach. There’s live music before and after the race, dinner provided to runners as part of the entry fee by Carrabba’s and for a price to non-runners and plenty of cold beer for all.
As for the football game issue, TenBroeck made his feelings clear.
“All I can say is, go Gators.”