By ryan arena

L’Observateur

LAPLACE – The annual Fellowship of Christian Athletes “Run for the Son” 5K race has certainly come a long way over the years.

“When we started this thing, we had a little over 100 runners and seven sponsors,” said Gary Zeringue, the event’s coordinator. “We’ve been hovering around 300 runners, and we’ll have about 25 or 26 sponsors this weekend.”

Today marks the 12th annual “Run for the Son” event, which kicks off with a one mile fun run/walk at 8 a.m., with the 5K race following thereafter at approximately 8:30 a.m. The race begins and ends on St. Charles Catholic’s campus.

The “Run for the Son” is the largest 5K race held in St. John the Baptist Parish each year and is billed as something of a tune-up for the Crescent City Classic, which will be held next Saturday.

This year’s race is dedicated to the memory of Marie Ory Dupont, a St. Charles Class of 2000 alumni who tragically passed away in October. Dupont was the school’s development director in charge of Admissions and Alumni for five years and was by all accounts extremely popular with both the school faculty and student body.

“It wasn’t too long after she passed away that, in the back of my mind, I thought, ‘Well, this is a no brainer. We’ll dedicate the race to her this year,’” said Zeringue.

Zeringue said that the race has really grown over the past six years. In the early days of the race, he said the roster of runners was heavily comprised of athletes at St. Charles, many of whom were encouraged to run by their coaches, perhaps in exchange for credit toward their offseason training for their respective sport.

But an unwanted side effect of that, Zeringue said, was that many outsiders did not want to run the race; older participants, for example, might have shied away from running against much younger football players and track athletes.

But things have changed, and the event’s composition is vastly more diverse these days.

“That attitude has gone away,” said Zeringue. “People realize that it’s for charity. They realize if you want to walk it, that’s perfectly fine. Now, when you look at the participants, the number of non-St. Charles students has pulled about even, maybe exceeded the number of students.

This year we have a 69-year-old registered. You go from that to 5-year-old toddlers. And lately, we’ve had a great influx of women, ages 40 to 50. Last year, more women ran the 5K than men.”

The Run for the Son doesn’t leave anyone hungry, either. Post race, there will be plenty of food and beverages to quench both hunger and thirst. There will also be awards and prizes given out after the race, including grand prizes in each race for both the male and female categories.

“We try to make sure that the younger participants, anyone under 10 years old, doesn’t leave empty handed,” Zeringue said.

Proceeds from the race benefit the FCA and will help finance local athletes’ expenses to national summer camps.