By james art It may seem odd that runners will be making their way through the streets of Homewood on Saturday as they take part in a race designed to celebrate Birmingham’s history, but this year marks a new beginning for old traditions as the Vulcan Run 10k turns Homewood into its new home.
“We’re super, super thankful for Homewood,” said Birmingham Track Club Vulcan Run Race Director Hunter Bridwell. “Homewood is kind of the central home of running in the Birmingham area because you have Trak Shak right there. There are such great supporters of running in the community and certainly of our races, and that’s where we do our Saturday long runs every weekend. We base that right in front of the Trak Shak over there, so it’s kind of like home base.”
Beginning as the Birmingham Track Club’s Bicentennial Run in November 1975 with 221 runners, the Vulcan Run has become one of the South East’s most popular races in its 50 years in operation. The run began as a 10km and 2mile run, and at the height of the running boom, the Vulcan Run was also a marathon, half marathon, 5 person marathon relay, 5km and 1 mile.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Vulcan Run was the premier running event for the South and had presenting sponsors such as Pepsi, Birmingham News, Sonat and Subway. The event had more than 5,000 runners, including many from surrounding states, competing for the big cash prizes. The numbers later declined after the loss of top sponsorships and in 2001 BTC only did 10K and 1 Mile. The decision was made due to the increased costs of the police and the reduced number of participants in the marathon and half marathon.
After the race was scaled back, the numbers rose again to 2,350 as Subway became the presenting sponsor, and the Mercedes Marathon was born in 2002 from what was once the Vulcan Marathon.
The run has a long history as a 10K State Championship race for the Road Runners Club of America, and in 2005 it was the RRCA Regional Championship 10K before becoming the RRCA National Championship 10K in 2007 and 2008. In 2006, the Vulcan Run won the inaugural RRCA road race of the year award. This year the race will once again be the RRCA 10K State Championship race.
As for the location change, the race is being moved to Homewood as BTC was unable to secure the necessary permits to complete the event in Birmingham.
“It really just comes down to the staffing available in terms of policing,” Bridwell said. “I think it’s widely known at this stage that they’re very thin on staff. So we’ve kind of been struggling with the same problem for the past few years. We had it on our traditional course a few years ago, and last year we were limited to a two-loop 5k course that the city had given pre-approval.”
Bridwell said it appears the city wants to consolidate any type of competition into one or two standardized courses. Unable to do it on the traditional course and this year being the event’s 50th anniversary, BTC decided to explore other options and landed on Homewood.
“I think there’s certainly some frustration among these participants, especially those who have been long-time participants in the competition, that they can’t run this kind of traditional downtown area,” Bridwell said. “But at the same time, we’re certainly looking forward to starting a new, new part of the history and legacy of this race.”
While the old route ran through downtown Birmingham, this year’s route will start in downtown Homewood on the plaza in front of Rosewood Hall, going up S 18th Street to Central Ave. and across Oxmoor Road through the Edgewood neighborhood. The race will finish back at City Hall and the following festivities will be at Rosewood Hall.
The competition starts at 8am on Saturday and participants can register until that morning. For more information or to register visit