It was a sunny, blue-skied afternoon on Sept. 25, 2011. John Ferrini and his wife, Brandi, ran across the finish line of the 4-mile, Strathmore Parks Run, holding hands. He donned a bow tie while she sported a tutu and veil. Both wore brand new white sneakers.

Immediately after the race, the two headed to a gazebo in Onondaga Park,  still decked out in their running gear, and were married in front of hundreds of running friends, family and strangers.

Ferrini and his wife, both Syracuse residents, found and fell in love with this particular race through Syrathon. Syrathon is a series of seven runs, all of different mileages that runners can participate in and try to log 26.2 miles by the time it is over — 26.2 miles is the equivalent of running a marathon. If they succeed, they are honored as a “Syrathoner” with a medal at a ceremonial breakfast after the last race.

The dates of the runs span from March 5 to Oct. 16.  It is $10 to sign up for Syrathon and be awarded a medal and a shirt, but a runner must additionally register for each individual race in the series.

This year, the seven runs on the Syrathon calendar in order are: the Tipperary Hill Shamrock Run, the Dunn Tire Mountain Goat Run, Paige’s Butterfly Run, Valley Nature Run/ Walk, Inner Harbor 5K, Strathmore Parks Run and Eastwood Park-to-Park Autumn Run.

In 2009, the Syracuse parks department paired with Fleet Feet Sports with the mission of encouraging people to run throughout the year and explore new parks and neighborhoods in Syracuse. Thus, Syrathon was born.

During that first year, there were only five races and only a total of 26.2 miles to be logged. Now, seven years later, the series has grown to include seven races and 35 miles. If a runner goes beyond the 26.2 mile challenge and completes all 35, their title is upgraded to “UltraSyrathoner.”

Chris Abbott, a program director at the parks department and a runner himself, said the main goal of Syrathon is not to crown the best runner in the world, but to challenge runners to stay active all year.

People can put the events on their calendars in advance and then have a reason to keep running, and it’s also a chance to expand people’s view of the city, he said.

Ferrini echoed Abbott, saying he’s run seven marathons, 48 half-marathons and countless 5Ks in a variety of cities and parks. He believes races are a great way to explore cities.

“We’ve all been to parks through Syrathon that we have never been to before and probably never would have been to,” Ferrini said. “Some of these places are pushed away and then brought back out through a race and there’s nothing better then a couple hundred people, on a beautiful day, going through a park that you’ve haven’t ever seen before.”

Ferrini is one of three people who has completed every race in every series since the race’s inauguration in 2009. Syracuse locals Beth Montague and Todd Keller also completed all the races. This means they have all achieved the title of “UltraSyrathoner” each year.

Joking that he only ran from the cops when he was younger, Ferrini actually began running in his 40s, in 2007. When he discovered Syrathon, it became special to him as it was a series of “great races” close to home.

Unlike Ferrini, Keller’s first race was coincidently the first race of the inaugural 2009 Syrathon series — the 4-mile Tipperary Hill Shamrock Run.

When Keller’s co-worker convinced him to run in the race, his only goal was to finish. He had played sports in the past, so he was athletic enough to cross the finish line, but beforehand, he was never an avid runner.

After he finished, another friend convinced him to do the second race in the series and before he knew it, he had run the entire 2009 Syrathon.

Keller said that if it were not for the Syrathon series he probably wouldn’t have continued running and probably wouldn’t have found his wife. The two met at Paige’s Butterfly run, the third run in the series.

The couple now runs with the Lake Effect Run Club, a local, free running group, along with Ferrini and his wife, Abbott and many other runners. The majority of the group plans to run in the Syrathon series and the club will preview the courses of all of the races beforehand. They are a close-knit group of friends who support one another through life events, running related or not.

“Lake Effect, and the Syracuse running community in general, is just so friendly — truly a fantastic group of people,” Ferrini said.

Published on March 3, 2016 at 12:32 am

Contact: ararcham@syr.edu