GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – The 43rd Annual Bellin Run will be the first-ever for a countless number of newcomers, while for twenty “legends,” it’s another mark on their perfect attendance record.
Every member from that select group participated on June 12, 1977, for the first ever race, which was then known as the Bellin Heartwarming Run.
At that time, it was actually planned as a one-time deal to promote heart health and cardiovascular fitness, but the over eight-hundred participants enjoyed it so much that organizers had little choice but to start the process of planning a second annual run.
One of the Bellin Legends, Green Bay’s George Wiesner, keeps coming back every year, but for very different reasons than before.
According to Wiesner, currently 62-years-old, he used to be caught up in bettering his time and setting personal records, but now his focus has shifted to the ideals that the event promotes.
“They say wisdom comes with age,” he explains. “As I’ve gotten a little older it’s like, yeah, it gets people in the community to have an active lifestyle.”
He first participated as a teenager when his brother and a friend mutually convinced him to try out the inaugural event.
Now with forty-two Bellin Runs in his rearview mirror, he says he still manages to get excited every single year while approaching the start line.
“One thing that gets me all charged up when I do the Bellin [Run] is the number of spectators along the route itself, it’s just amazing the number of people that come out,” says Wiesner.
While the community support and interest have remained steady throughout the decades, he says that the technology involved has literally changed in front of his eyes.
Perhaps most notably, the process of tracking a runners time from start to finish.
According to him, the ’70s were essentially the wild west of timing.
Unofficial results truly were unofficial.
“No matter when you hit the start line, that didn’t matter,” he explains. “Your time was from the minute that gun went off and then until you hit the finish line.”
Now, participants are issued a race bib that contains a computerized timing mechanism that’s already built-in.
So as George prepares for his 43rd Bellin Run, it’s not the race itself that he focuses on, but rather how the event plays into his 365-day a year fitness mindset.
“That fact that I’m going to be sixty-two and I don’t take any medication, I have low blood pressure, I have low cholesterol,” he says. “And I think it’s all a function of the Bellin [Run] helped me develop a healthy lifestyle.”
