Editor’s note: The 5K was postponed due to inclement weather.
It’s a testimony to the hardiness of runners that on the bitterest of March mornings last year—a day so blustery and cold that no one but a runner would set foot outdoors, and certainly not in shorts—they gathered by the hundreds to race in the 4th Annual Fighting Irish 5K in Chestnut Hill.
It is a testimony as well to talents of Frank McGuire and fellow members and friends of the University of Notre Dame Alumni Club of Philadelphia that, on that day, the race raised the most money in its brief history. The beneficiary of that $30,000 check? St. Malachy’s Parish School in North Philadelphia. Since the race’s inception, the club has raised close to $90,000 for the school.
The race is on again, this time on St. Patrick’s Day—Saturday, March 17. Eight hundred runners and a hundred walkers pounded the streets of Chestnut Hill last year. The club is hoping it can do even better, both in number of participants and funds for St. Malachy’s.
“The race just keeps on growing,” says McGuire, a 1980 graduate (marketing) of the University of Notre Dame. Considering the level of organization that goes into the event, perhaps that’s not surprising. McGuire and his volunteers start planning in September. “The last two weeks before the race, it becomes something like a full-time job.”
Runners have a chance at the usual competitive laurels, and that’s fine. But race organizers go out of their way to sweeten the pot. This year, participants are automatically entered in a drawing for two free golf vacation packages in Ireland, courtesy of McGuire’s brother-in-law Eamonn Kennelly, owner of Golf Vacations Ireland. There’s also a bit of entertainment, with music provided by a band of pipers.
The race was the brainchild of McGuire, a runner himself. “I’ve been running about 15 years,” he says. “It just started as a way of working out. Soon I was running 5Ks and 10Ks. I went through a period where I ran in 15 marathons. I’ve done Boston five times.”
As for the beneficiary, St. Malachy’s became the choice early on. “At the time, I was the chair of community service for the club. I was looking for a sizeable project for us to do,” he says. “We thought about St. Malachy’s because it’s a grade school and parish that doesn’t take money from the (Philadelphia Catholic) archdiocese. They survive on donations alone.”
For Maguire, there could hardly be a more worthy recipient. “There are about 210 kids who go to the school,” he says. “Only 15 of them are Catholic. It’s an oasis in a troubled neighborhood.”
If you want to run (or set a more leisurely pace in the 1K walk) and help a worthy cause, the race starts at 9 a.m. on West Willow Grove Avenue in Chestnut Hill, in front of Chestnut Hill Academy. Registration begins at 7:45. Pre-registered runners and walkers can pick up their race packets on race day or on Friday, March 16, from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Chestnut Hill Hotel, 8229 Germantown Ave. in Chestnut Hill. The registration fee is $18 (for pre-race registration postmarked by March 7), and $25 on the day of the race.
For more details, visit the race Web site.
Volunteers also are needed.
