5K Raises Nearly $50,000 for Scholarships
Nov. 16, 2023 - The 16th Annual Runway 5K raised $47,361 for Airport Opportunity Scholarships at Central Piedmont Community College. The Oct. 21 run had 1,672 registered participants.
Since 2019, the race has raised $161,011 for 15 local students to earn their associate degree for free at Central Piedmont.
The overall 2023 winner was Carson Truesdell of Charlotte with a time of 15:13. “It’s always been a fun race. The atmosphere around it, the course, and it’s very competitive. It’s just a fun way to compete and race,” Truesdell said.
His prize included two round trip Delta Air Lines tickets to anywhere in the country. “I think my girlfriend and I will go someplace really special next year, probably out to the west coast, to the mountains,” Truesdell said. “We love to travel and it’s funny too because we’ve been flying Delta a lot lately, so we are excited that the tickets are for Delta.”
The avid runner plans to run a December marathon in California and as far as next year’s Runway 5K, he’ll be back. “I want to do it as many years as possible because it’s such a flat and fast course. It’s such a good opportunity to run a PR, ‘that’s runners’ speak for Personal Record,” Truesdell said. “It’s a great opportunity to run fast and of course the prizes are good too.”
Ashely Carney of Charlotte was the first woman to cross the finish line with a time of 20:10. “I’ve heard friends talk about it in the past and this year it just so happened to line up with my son’s birthday. He has started running with my husband and I so I thought it would be a good opportunity to race together and just to do something fun. It’s not every day you get to run next to airplanes taking off,” Carney said.
She also received two free Delta tickets for being the first-place female winner and has been eyeing flights to Hawaii for a future trip with her husband.
Like Truesdell, the Runway 5K was a big hit for Carney and her son. “You can’t run a race in Charlotte without having a lot of hills, so my son enjoyed how flat the course was, which made us both much faster than we normally are.”
Check out all the fun from the 2023 Runway 5K.