The lowdown on Winter Fun Runs
Hankering for those winter runs where you can’t feel your fingers or your toes? Well, we’ve got ’em comin’ at ya! (How’s that for a sales pitch?)
Our Wind Drinker winter fun runs kick off Nov. 6 with the Bon Appetite Run. We meet at the old Sports & Courts location (Elks Club parking lot—behind Heebs Grocery), run a little (wherever you want!), and then go out to breakfast to socialize and eat—breakfast location determined by group consensus when we meet that morning!
On Nov. 20, we’ll have our annual Jim Banks Turkey Trot, starting from the Foothills Fellowship church in Spirit Hills. This is a no-watch, predict-your-time run. We give away turkeys to the runner in each distance who finishes closest to his/her predicted time—and a few more via random draw! Come on out, have some fun, and maybe win a bird!
Our Jingle Bell Jog is on Dec. 18, and will be held on the Gallagator Trail system, departing from the vicinity of the Bozeman Library (specific location to be published soon). This is a festive run, with a fun holiday cookie exchange afterward!
We kick off 2022 with our Resolution Run. This low-key event is held in traditional “Fat Ass” style—no t-shirts, no timing, no support (well, we might brew up some warm soup, if it’s really cold!). Come out to Headwaters State Park, and run as many laps of our 5K course as you like—up to the full 50K, if you want! (NOTE: We have a tentative date of Jan. 1 for this run, but there may be a conflict at Headwaters that day, so it may get moved to Jan. 8).
Feb. 5 and March 5, 2022, will be the dates of our Froze Nose and Handicap Runs, respectively. These runs are done on the same course, with the objective of seeing who can improve their time from February to March. From your February time, we’ll calculate a handicap time for you, that will determine what time you will start the March run; the fastest runners will start last, so everyone should finish at about the same time—should lead to some exciting sprint finishes! We are looking for new courses for these runs (last year’s runs at Glen Lake didn’t work out the best), so stay tuned for location information to be posted at a later date!
We’ll finish up our winter season on April 16 with our Back From The M runs, using the M and Drinking Horse trails, and the Bozeman-to-the-M trail to Story Mill Park.
All of our winter fun runs start at 9 a.m. (start times for the Handicap Run will be calculated and published after the Froze Nose, but the earliest start time will not be earlier than 9:00). We intend to run these events cup-free, so please bring your own water bottle to the runs!
We are still ironing out some of the details for these events, so check out the event listings on our website (https://winddrinkers.org/events/) about a week before each run, for the most up-to-date event information!
