Trail Series 2020 Wrap-up

I wasn’t sure how the series was going to go, if at all, in 2020. With the flooding we had in ’18-’19 I decided to change two of the race locations and then we end up having almost drought conditions. Covid-19 put the series in flux if it would even be able to be held, and put a big question mark on how many people would actually show up if we did put it on. 

Well, after getting all the permits secured, new races created, and successfully executing all the races, I was blown away by the results. We had a record number of participants for the overall series and for Newton Hills in its 19th year, after having declining numbers in years two and three. We even had 47 people run and finish all three races! They all received a special bonus $25 605 Running Company gift card for their accomplishments! 

With the major increase in participants we were also able to raise just over $5,000 and we donated the majority of that to Falls Area Single Track. We want to continue supporting their mission of 25 mile of trails built by 2025. It was very exciting to have a trail race in Sioux Falls because of their trail building efforts at Tuthill. They just finished some trails on the west side in Legacy Park and have many more plans in the works. 

While there was a lot to celebrate, we had some difficult changes to make this year such as eliminating late registration after the online cutoff. We ended up turning away a number of people, which was the hardest thing I’ve had to do as a race director. Not being able to celebrate after the races by giving out awards was also a major shift. We hope we are able to bring back both late registration and awards next year, but we’ll have to wait and see how things progress. 

For 2021 we hope to bring you one more new race location and we’ll rotate two of the three races every year going forward. Newton Hills will celebrate its 20th anniversary! We’ll look to keep with the tradition of giving out unique swag gifts for each race and we’ll continue keeping a points championship too. We will continue to look for other local trail races to partner with to make them points eligible races too. We love supporting other local trail races and helping them grow and bringing attention to our trail races at the same time. Lastly, we hope to have dedicated website pages at runsiouxfalls.org for all the races, where you can find all the information you need on the races. 

A final thank you to all our sponsors: 605 Running Company, Avera, Scheels, Fair Tax, Kristi Wire Design Co., Sunny’s Pizza, WoodGrain Brewing Co., and First Bank & Trust. Thank you to all our volunteers, the races would not have happened without you! 

We’ll see you on the trails…

Nathan Schwab

Stats for the Trail Series:

331 Registered Runners

292 Runners ran 

103 Runners ran only one race

24 Runners ran two races

47 runners ran all three races

$1,182.67 raised for SFARC & $4,000 donated to FAST