Bloomsday participation rebounds to 32,000 after pandemic-era downturn
Catie Marlin, 5, and brother David, 7, dressed as Pikachu and the Mandarlorian, encourage runners along Summit Boulevard.
Participation at Bloomsday rebounded from a pandemic-era downturn in the race’s 47th year on Sunday, as more than 32,000 entrants registered to run in person or remotely, according to organizers.
Of the 28,717 people who registered to run in person, 25,882 finished the race, said Lilac Bloomsday Association spokeswoman Bethany Lueck. Another 3,589 runners registered to participate virtually, of whom 3,279 submitted their results.
After COVID-19 forced organizers to switch the race to a virtual-only format in 2020, participation dipped to about 21,000, down from more than 38,000 a year earlier. In 2021, nearly 29,000 runners registered but barely 23,000 completed the 12-kilometer race virtually.
When the iconic springtime race returned to Spokane in 2022, organizers kept the option to participate virtually – and more than 5,400 registered to do so. Together with the in-person runners, more than 29,500 entrants registered last year.
Sunday’s race marked a return to an earlier era in another way, too: Finishers earned a black T-shirt for the first time since 1985, Lueck said, when nearly 40,000 runners registered for Bloomsday. Registration topped out at more than 61,000 runners in 1996.
Mark Arnold, of Moscow, Idaho, won the honor of designing the shirt. The 72-year-old, who entered designs in the contest in each of the past four years, said he wanted to go back to basics, using brightly colored lines to illustrate a runner in stride.
“The human figure has always been paramount, of course,” said Arnold, who moved to Moscow seven years ago after retiring from an ad agency in Minneapolis. “I mean, that’s what it’s all about.”
Arnold said he chose to use bright lines because they create the impression of motion. He used negative space to outline the runner’s right arm, while the word “Bloomsday” frames the elbow. He said he chose to write the race’s title in a wavy, lower-case font – despite race organizers asking for capital letters – because the font’s vertical lines “really give it movement,” with the word appearing to trail behind the runner.
“You can’t stray too far from reality, and if you can define the figure with purely lines, that would be my inspiration for it,” he said.
Why the black shirt? Arnold said he presented his design on a black background because of the contrast it created. Lueck said the Bloomsday board chose Arnold’s design during its annual retreat in September, but the decision remained a closely guarded secret until the T-shirt was unveiled.
About 4,000 volunteers helped make Bloomsday 2023 possible, according to Lueck. The event raised more than $15,000 for Teen and Kid Closet in Spokane, which provides free clothing to young people in need.