Spokane loves its spring and summer community events, and none are more memorable than the Bloomsday run. This year’s 31st annual event was one of the best, in part because this year’s finisher’s t-shirt was so much about the Falls. 

We could go on about how Bloomsday - reportedly the nation’s largest timed road race, attracting between 40-50 thousand participants each year - builds our town’s civic identity and community like no other event, how it’s come to mark the beginning of the outdoor season for Spokane, or how cool it is to watch some of those world-class atheletes blaze past, seemingly without effort.

But as Friends of the Falls, we’re particularly keen on the course itself, laid out to circumnavigate the Spokane River Gorge, with much of the 7.46-mile course offering views of the river - and with its finish line crossing the Monroe Street Bridge, just downstream of the Falls. (We even felt a little mist from the Falls at the finish line!)

Then there’s this year’s t-shirt. Here’s a design that renders the Falls and the people of Spokane as one and the same. There have been a few shirts or official event posters featuring the Falls over the years, but none come close to this shirt in capturing the essense of what our organization hopes for our town - a community that truly identifies itself with its river.

Enough. Time to rest up, look for race results in tomorrow’s Spokesman-Review, and bask in the glory of having finished another Bloomsday run in beautiful Spokane, Washington!

Course Map (3.3 Mb, Acrobat® file)
About Bloomsday (Wikipedia link)