MOOSE JAWG CHARITY ROAD RACE - Biography

The Moose Jawg Charity Road Race is a 5km and 10km race organized and hosted by the Moose Jaw Horizon Running Club. It is held every Canada Day, July 1, in Moose Jaw’s own beautiful Wakamow Valley.  Runners pay $35.00 to enter and are given a race t-shirt, a post-race breakfast and a chance to win many draw prizes. Proceeds for this event go to the Moose Jaw Health Foundation Initiatives.  Approximately $23,000.00 has been raised in the last seven years. We have been operating on a zero budget and have relied on revenue from the race and monies donated from several local businesses to cover our costs for advertising, signage, t-shirts and food.

The idea for the Moose Jawg sprang from the same initial meeting between Dawn Luhning and Ken Dalgarno to organize the Moose Jaw Horizon Running Club. At the time, almost all road races in the province were held in either Regina or Saskatoon. There had been a few attempts to organize a race in Moose Jaw but for whatever reason they failed to generate much interest or participation. We knew that if properly organized, there were enough local runners to sustain a race and if properly marketed, we could attract a good number of the running community from throughout the province.  We met our goals the very first year with 75 runners. Almost half of the participants were from out of town. Our second year entries increased to 125 runners. We continued to grow in our third year with 150 runners with many more watching and cheering from the sidelines. In our fourth year (2005) we exceeded the 200 entries with a very successful 209 registered runners and we have continued to grow. The race has attracted runners from as far away as North Carolina, Minnesota, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. Also included before the race each year is the “Runt Run” where children under 10 years of age run 1km.  The “Runt Run” has proven to be a very entertaining pre-race event.  There is no cost for the children to participate and every year each child received a gift, a sports drink and lots of cheers for their efforts.

The Moose Jawg has proven to be a great success.  A representative from Brainsport (a running store in Saskatoon) remarked that our event was “the best he had been to in some years”. The Provincial sports body, Saskatchewan Athletics, in 2005 also added our 5km race to their Timex Road Race Series. This is a series of races where some of the more elite runners in the province participate and acquire points and are subsequently ranked. For the Moose Jawg to be added to this prestigious list of running events in the province is definitely a coup for our event and to the City of Moose Jaw and the efforts of the Running Club.