Longtime racer, Kim Hunt, reflects on race’s legacy over its popular history.
Runners and walkers big and small will descend on Owen Bircher Park in Wilson today for the 4th of July 10K.
Friends of Pathways in cooperation with Skinny Skis will host the annual run, which enters its 39th year, a long-standing community tradition that organizers are excited to continue.
The competitive start for runners is at 8 a.m. with registration opening an hour before or online at FriendsOfPathways.org. Walkers will start just before the runners. The route will take them down Fish Creek Road and back to Owen Bircher in time for an awards ceremony where ski passes, soft goods and other local swag will be handed out.
Thirty-nine years ago the event saw one of its most loyal competitors, and a Wilson local to this day, run her first. The girl, Kimberly Svendsen, was 14 at the time and had just moved here. She recalls “just wanting to beat her dad.” Now, decades later, Kim is better known by many Wilson residents as Mrs. Hunt, the elementary PE teacher.
A lifelong runner, she looks forward to the run every year. After marrying her husband, Rick Hunt, in 1993, Kim said, the couple built their home on Fish Creek Road, the running route, and “I used to have my times on the wall in our basement.”
Kim remembers the race as “a family tradition for years,” adding, “I Nordic skied, ran cross-country and did both the mile and 2-mile in track, so I was usually training in the summer and this was one my favorites.”
For Kim the down-and-back course is unique: “I remember loving how you are able to look up and actually count how many people were in front of you,” she said.
Hunt has now taught PE for 24 years. At Wilson School, she said, her mantra to her students is: “Let’s be skiing when we’re 80.”
“We live in such an amazing place with the physical and outdoor opportunities I really want my students to embrace that,” she said.
Hunt has suffered nagging foot injuries recently that have kept her from running, so she’s switched her focus to biking and skiing to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
“I unfortunately will not be running this year,” she said, but she will be biking in preparation for the Tour de Wyoming.
But she’s still a big fan of the long-running 10K tradition.
“It is so cool to get out and be healthy with the same people year after year,” she said.
Every year the event attracts local families who return along with competitive and talented regional running talent.
“For us, we might have family in town for the holiday, and it was always 7 a.m., ‘All right time to wake up, this is what we do on the Fourth,’ and we’d drag whoever was in town along with us," said Hunt. "On a day usually filled with potato salad, chips, hot dogs and beer, I think the 10K is the perfect family event.”
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