The course records at the Run4Kerri Road Race are an impressive 18:44 for the men's and 21:39 for the women's. In any year of this popular four-miler, those marks are in serious jeopardy of getting eclipsed.
It should be more of the same this coming Saturday, Aug. 6, when runners answer the gun for the 16th annual event on Wakefield's East Matunuck Beach Road. Race director Scott Bessette and his family always do a great job in attracting a stellar field to the early August race, which offers a prize purse of close to $2,000. In the past four years, 20 minutes has been broken 19 times for men and an abundance have dipped under 24 minutes on the women's side.
But the race not only produces its share of fast times and an average field between 500 and 600 participants, it also supports a very worthwhile cause. It was created in memory of Bessette family's sister/daughter Kerri Lynn Bessette, a former South Kingstown runner, who succumbed to complications resulting from bacterial meningitis while a freshmen student/athlete at LaSalle University in Philadelphia in April of 2001. The money raised from the Run4Kerri race has been donated yearly to a memorial scholarship for a senior female track and field athlete at SK. It has also been used to help sponsor the Narragansett Youth Summer Track Series and is given to school library giving program, which stocks the shelves of a chosen school with developmental- and age-appropriate content.
Besides its cashes prizes, the Run4Kerri four-miler offers awards in eight different age categories. All entrants are also eligible for prize drawings. T-shirts are guaranteed to the first 600 pre-registered runners and walkers.
The race starts at 9 a.m.