Governor’s Cup 2017
Thank you to everyone who toed the start line to run or walk the 2017 Governor’s Cup. An extra special thanks to those who took a few minutes to fill out our survey. Your responses help us put together the best possible events every year.
2017 Event Summary
The Lexington Medical Center 45th annual Governor’s Cup Road Race took place on May 19 and May 20, 2017. This is our second season as a spring race that is held the first Saturday after Mother’s Day. Events include a Main Street Mile on Friday evening with Kid’s Open and Elite divisions. On Saturday, we had the half marathon and 5k events. Both the Main Street Mile and Half Marathon were State Championship events for the Road Runners Club of America.
The Main Street Mile events began on Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. with our Future Scholar Kid’s mile. Present at the event, and encouraging approximately 500 kids’ to be Future Scholars, was SC State Treasurer Curtis Loftis. Everyone was a winner in the Kid’s Mile Fun Run as they ran down Main Street Columbia, and enjoyed Kona ice, face painting, and more.
Our Main Street Mile Open and elite competition followed the Kid’s Mile. The open division male winner was Derek Hutton in 5:10 and the female winner was Marian Nanney in 6:19. The elite division men’s winner was James Dwyer in a time of 4:11 and the female winner was Sophy Jepchirchir in a time of 4:46.
On Saturday, the Lexington Medical Center half marathon started at 7:00 am, followed by the BlueCross BlueShield 5k run/walk at 7:30 am. The top male in the half marathon was Geoffrey Ngetich in a time of 1:08:10 and top female Zipporah Chebet in a time of 1:22:26. For the 5k race, the male winner was James Dwyer in a time of 15:28 and the top female was Janel Blancett in a time of 17:04. Please view full race results here.
Special thanks to many who made this day possible. Thanks to our platinum sponsor Lexington Medical Center who supports our event fully as a sponsor with high employee participation and a top-notch marketing team. Thanks to our 5k race/walk gold sponsor *Blue Cross Blue Shield of SC who has an enormous employee participation of runners and volunteers. BCBSSC supplied volunteers for all our water/aid stations and cycle support for the races. Thanks to our Main Street Mile gold sponsor Future Scholar 529 who enabled our children to run at no cost and supported our event in many ways.
Thank you to the rest of our sponsors. The State Newspaper, Richland County, City of Columbia, City of Cayce, Experience Columbia SC, The Hilton Columbia Center, Dicks Sporting Goods, Columbia Regional Sports Council, Edventure, Grace Outdoors, and Tin Roof. Special Thanks to Tin Roof for supplying a great post event party.
One more special thanks to dozens of volunteers who made this an awesome day for everyone!
*BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
