Freihofer's among road races seeing participation decline

Entries down in road races across the country, and area event sees dropoff too Participation in road races has declined nationally over the past few years, and even the popular Freihofer's Run for Women isn't immune to the trend. Since drawing a record 5,045 registrants and 4,248 finishers for its 35th anniversary in 2013, the Freihofer's has seen its numbers drop noticeably in both categories heading into Saturday's 39th running of the 5-kilometer race. Among them is that as the economy has improved, people have more disposable income and might head out of town for the weekend rather than competing in road races. Running USA reported last year the number of recreational athletes completing road races declined for the second straight year in 2015, when there were 17.1 million finishers across all distances. "The amount of sustained growth that running has had, it was bound to taper off," said Harshbarger, who estimated there are 30,000 road races nationally, including events that have courses of more than one distance. You just saw races starting for any cause, reason, theme. [...] what we've seen, there's been even a response from cities both in terms of government but also emergency response, saying, 'We can no longer continue to close roads and disrupt commerce and things on the weekends.