Historic homes line downtown 5K path

The new course of the MacArthur Park 5K crosses this pedestrian bridge over Interstate 630. The race begins at 7 p.m. Friday in downtown Little Rock.
The new course of the MacArthur Park 5K crosses this pedestrian bridge over Interstate 630. The race begins at 7 p.m. Friday in downtown Little Rock.

The Downtown Little Rock Partnership and its partners have plotted a new course for the MacArthur Park 5K, a footrace at 7 p.m. Friday around the city’s oldest park.

In the past, Active-Style enjoyed teasing the partnership about its race course - a certified 3.1 miles that included less than one-tenth of a mile of the park and also ventured far outside the MacArthur Park Historic District. (Not that runners notice scenery beyond the asphalt a few yards in front of their feet.) But in their defense, construction in the area limited course options, and also, the 5K route was certified as accurately measured to USA Track & Field standards, an amenity for runners who want to set record times.

The new route is also certified, which will please the speedy racers who show up for this annual evening 5K. Other, potentially more pleasing amenities have not changed: There will be the usual post-race lawn party with music, pizza, hot dogs and beer.

“The new course is designed to go through the park and go to the surrounding neighborhoods,” says Becky Falkowski, partnership representative. “We wanted part of it to show off the park.”

Event director Chellie Castellanos has walked the course (her name is pronounced “Shelly Cast-eh-yanyos”).

“What stuck out in my mind are the homes,” Castellanos says. “Which is what Little Rock has been and continues to be because so many of those homes are alive still, they’re being remodeled and refurbished. You have a lot of people that believe in this community, which was obvious to me when I did this course.”

The new route (measured by Bill Torrey) begins and ends right where the old one did, in the circular drive in front of the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History. But that’s the total of course correspondence. Instead of heading north on an interstate frontage road, racers will travel south on McMath Avenue, flanking the park and passing by the Arkansas Bar Association and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. Keeping the park pond on their right, they’ll skirt the park’s southern boundary to South Commerce Street. There they’ll turn north, heading across Ninth Street on Commerce.

After turning right onto Eighth Street, they’ll go left on Sherman Street, left on Seventh Street, left on Rock Street, left on Eighth Street and then right on Commerce. This big block is cheek-by-jowl elderly frame or brick houses, including at least one giant white one that anybody would call “a mansion.”

Commerce will take racers back across Ninth. After running south on Commerce with the Arkansas Arts Center on their left, they’ll turn west at 11th Street and go to Cumberland Street, then south again to follow Cumberland across the Interstate 630 overpass to 15th Street. Fifteenth will take them east to Bragg Street where, not far from Rockefeller Elementary School, they’ll find the handicap access ramp to the pedestrian bridge over I-630.

Up and over the bridge, then it’s a right turn followed by a left at McMath, then a left onto Ninth, a dash west in front of the park, and finally they’ll curl back onto the military museum’s circle drive and kick to the finish line.

In other words, drivers who use Ninth going to or from Interstate 30 between 7 and 8 p.m. Friday might want to seek an alternate route.

If you can’t visualize all the turns, don’t worry, Castellanos says, “We will have police officers at most all of the intersections. It will be a well-managed course.”

In addition to the historic houses, Castellanos notes that as they approach Daisy L. Gatson Bates Drive, runners will notice “an urbanism changing styles over there, trying to breathe new life into that area. There’s some old homes mixed in with some fresh ideas” about architecture.

The course is mostly flat just until you get to the pedestrian bridge, which provides “a great view of, you know, the traffic, but also you can see into the park with all the new additions, which include the dog park as well as the beautiful pond,” she says. “And the pavilion is there. And then just the grounds themselves, which are so rich with color right now.”

She adds that “wheelchairs are welcome, strollers are welcome, roller blades are welcome and dogs are welcome. Absolutely. The more the merrier.”

Registration costs $25 ($35 on race day) and is available online at macarthurparklr.com. You can also call (501) 375-0121 for fax instructions, or register in person beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the military museum, 503 E. Ninth St.

Through Wednesday, businesses can enter a corporate challenge for co-ed teams of four runners ($250 for one team, $200 for a second team and $175 for each additional team from the same company). Teammates must have been employed by the company for at least 1,000 hours. The returning champion, HEAL Arkansas, will defend the traveling trophy - a bronze bust of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, for whom the park is named on account of his service to the nation during and after World War II coupled with his inadvertent birth in the Civil War arsenal that now houses the military museum.

The 5K sponsors include the MacArthur Park Group, Little Rock Parks and Recreation, Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, Budweiser and Park Place Apartments.

ActiveStyle, Pages 23 on 04/29/2013

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