The Crazylegs Classic is a benefit for the UW Athletic department – an organization which really doesn’t need the money these days. This is not one of my favorite races: the course can be very crowded and there is only one water stop, so it is hard to run a good race. And the T-shirt tends to be kind of ugly. But I try to run it every year because it was my first organized race and I kind of enjoy it as an event.

The 1993 Crazylegs Classic was the first race that I ever ran in – I made a lot of mistakes in training for the run, and made a few on race day as well. I still remember that first race because Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson also ran in the race and I saw him at several points along the course.

I’ve run in the Crazylegs almost every year since then. I’ve missed only two races over the years. In 2006 I missed the race because I had surgery the previous week, and in 2011 I didn’t run because I was recovering from a knee injury. And in 2020 the race was canceled because of Covid-19. The 2021 race was a virtual race, but things were back to normal in 2022.

The race has changed a bit over the years. The course has been tweaked several times, and there have been years where road construction has caused major detours form the established route. The course has been more or less fixed since 2003 when the race went from being 5 miles to 8 kilometers. Not sure why they made this change – the difference comes out to be about 50 yards, so it’s insignificant. The course was modified again in 2019 to start at the Library Mall instead of the Capitol Square.

The biggest change was in 2006 when the wave start was introduced. This has made the event much safer for all of the participants. The one unfortunate side effect is that by the time that my wave reaches the start line, the winner has already crossed the finish line. But in recent years they’ve kind of backed away from the wave start, which does lead to crowded conditions in the first mile or so.

Crazylegs Results