Run Wild Missoula – Missoula Marathon to be Virtual in 2021

The organizers of the Missoula Marathon, Run Wild Missoula, announced on Thursday that the 2021 event will be held virtually.

Race Director Ashley Cossairt, who took over after the untimely passing of beloved long time race director Tony Banovich, provided details to KGVO News.

“We've spent the last several months working with the Missoula Marathon medical director,” said Cossairt. “We've had conversations with the Missoula City County Health Department, and then of course internal discussions with the board of directors and our Missoula Marathon race committee and ultimately, taking several factors into consideration, the timing just does not seem appropriate to continue to move forward with an in person event based on the current status of the pandemic, the slow rollout of the vaccine and the fact that we draw participants from across the US and around the world.”

Cossairt explained how the virtual races will work.

“Virtual participants can complete their distance or distances, if they're doing more than one event, anywhere at any time by Sunday, June 27,” she said. “So they can do it around the block; they can do it out on the trails or on a treadmill, as long as they complete the distance, they can upload their results to our run signup page, which is our registration portal and complete the race.”

Cossairt laid out the cost to participate in the 2021 virtual Missoula Marathon, the half-marathon and the 5k race.

“There is a cost to the virtual event,” she said. “The full marathon is $87 and the half marathon is $77 and the 5K is $30. With that they each get a customized runner box, which includes the participant shirts, a finisher medal, and then we're putting together Montana and Missoula specific items to still help support local businesses and then send participants who don't live here a little taste of Missoula to look forward to being here in the future.”

Cossairt provided registration information.

“If you head over to Missoula marathon.org, we've got a link for registration right on that homepage, which will send you right over to run sign up and then you can pick your event and start training,” she said “Please put in a few training miles before tackling 13.1 or 26.2 miles, and then we'll continue to keep in contact with participants throughout the training process and ship out those runner boxes at the end of June.”

Find out more by accessing the Run Wild Missoula website here.