I am excited to share that we have helped bring back safe in-person road racing in New Hampshire by partnering with Millennium Running. I am always moved by the sight of runners lining up for their first race since the pandemic hit. With the support from the State of New Hampshire’s COVID Task Force, NH Governor Chris Sununu, the NH Attorney General’s Office, and nearly a dozen local towns and cities in NH, Millennium Running has helped to safely produce 37 in-person events with a total of 11,267 finishers during the pandemic.
In June and July of 2020, Millennium rolled out new small-scale events with a maximum of 100 runners and walkers, called Exclusive 5k’s. This small-scale format allowed Millennium to fine tune event logistics while gaining customer and municipality confidence. This format also ensured that an event would all but eliminate a mass gathering at bottlenecks during key points such as the start line, registration and the finish line. Additionally, the format also mitigates passing or packs on the course.
“Northeast Delta Dental has been an essential partner in supporting our efforts to bring in person road racing back to NH safely,” stated John Mortimer, Millennium Running, Owner. “Not only did Delta Dental continue to support our events like the Delta Dental New England Half Marathon and the Delta Dental Points Chase, under the leadership of President & CEO, Tom Raffio but the company doubled-down on their support of wellness to purchase masks for each finisher of every Millennium race. This allowed us to execute on a best practices protocol we developed in collaboration with Governor Sununu and his advisors at Health & Human Services. It’s not an overstatement to say we could not have delivered in person racing to the public without Delta Dental’s help!”
Since the pandemic began, Millennium has had 20,726 participants combined for in-person and virtual events. Millennium was able to raise $67,703 for local charities and organizations from these events.
Bill McCann, a runner, enthusiastically complimented Northeast Delta Dental recently, “Thank you for all you do for the running community and promoting fitness. It was fun to run in a “real” race series again and catch up with friends!”
Learn more about Millennium Running here.
