Thousands gather downtown for annual Run to the Pub

What gets more people to run than the promise of beer? For many Bozemanites, it could be a free visit to Ireland — along with a bunch of beer.

Recently, Pub 317’s annual Run to the Pub saw its biggest turnout ever, with finishers energized by the possibility of winning a trip to Dublin.

This year’s Run to the Pub took place on Saturday, March 14. The event consisted of a 10k and a half-marathon, both starting and ending at Pub 317 downtown. The race has been a tradition for about 16 years, according to Race Director Tyler Wilkinson. The City of Bozeman supports the tradition by shutting down a portion of Main Street and all of Willson Avenue each year.

“The race started out with one of the owners of Pub 317,” Wilkinson said. “One year, he asked a few friends if they would be interested in running from his house downtown to the pub and then having a beer at the finish.”

According to Wilkinson, most of the participants are locals who race every year.

“This year, we have about 3,000 runners,” he said. “It turns into about 10,000 to 12,000 people downtown in a one-block radius.”

The first-place runner of the 10k was Bozeman local Jake Perrin with a time of 30:43.0. Layne Ryerson from Manhattan won the half-marathon with a time of 1:15:34.

Bozeman local and runner Andy Sherman has been participating in the Run to the Pub for the past seven years and, like many people, it has become a tradition for him.

“We started doing it a long time ago and try to do it every year,” Sherman said. “It's a fun race, there are good people that do it, nobody’s too competitive and there are nice prizes at the end.”

Sherman said that the route was more difficult this year because the course was changed and there was more elevation gain than before.

At the end of the course, a DJ and hundreds of people were gathered to cheer on the finishers.

All finishers were entered into a raffle for a free trip to Ireland, where they will run the Dublin Marathon, or any other race while abroad, and travel around the city, according to the Run to the Pub website. 

This raffle, known as Dublin Adventures, began a few years after the race was created, according to Wilkinson. The first trip was sponsored by an owner of Pub 317, but as the event grew, the entry fees began paying for the trips.

Once the races finished, the winners of the Dublin Adventures raffle were called. The raffle included two runners from each race, and this year’s winners were Monica Delaware, Erika Frounfelker, Victor Perez and Tammy MacDonald.

200 volunteers helped put on the race and local nonprofits like Sweet Pea, Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter, Haven and Gallatin Valley Land Trust helpedrun the aid stations, according to Wilkinson.

While the race is for-profit, Pub 317 has donated over $200,000 to local charities since the event was created, according to Wilkinson.

“I can only do so much,” he said. “So without the volunteers, the aid stations, the nonprofits and the downtown businesses, we wouldn’t be able to do this.”

“My favorite part with this is seeing everybody downtown and seeing all of the energy,” Wilkinson said. “The people run this race to celebrate the change of seasons; they’re not necessarily running to try and break any records.”

To learn more about the Run to the Pub, visit https://www.runtothepub.com/.