UMKC will be part of a grand tradition on June 3 when Kansas City celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Hospital Hill Run.
The UMKC School of Medicine, UMKC Health Sciences District, and University Health all serve as co-sponsors Kansas City’s oldest road race. With the sponsorship, UMKC faculty, staff, students, alumni can receive a 20 percent discount when they REGISTER using this code: UMKCSOM23. For younger participants, K-12 registration is offered as well.
Today, the Hospital Hill Run is one of region’s premiere running events and includes a 5K Run, a 10K run and a half marathon. More than 170,000 runners of all levels, from Olympic athletes to weekend warriors, and from throughout the world have participated in the event that takes place each June.
The UMKC School of Medicine was only few years old when the school’s founder, E. Grey Dimond, M.D., launched a running event in 1974 to coincide with a postgraduate course dealing with health and physical fitness. That event would become the Hospital Hill Run.
During those early years, the 13-mile half marathon route took runners by many of the hospitals affiliated with the School of Medicine: Truman Medical Center, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Menorah Medical Center, Research Medical Center, Baptist Medical Center, Saint Luke’s Hospital, Trinity Lutheran Hospital, Trinity Lutheran, and St. Mary’s Medical Center.
As it did then, the race still begins and ends in front of Kansas City’s Crown Center.
In his biography, “Take Wing! Interesting Things that Happened on My Way to School,” Dimond wrote that, “Near the beginning of their route, the runners came up a long slope, immediately by Diastole. For many years, it gave me a surge of happiness to stand on the southwest corner of 25th and Holmes and see the thousands of men and women go by, many calling out a greeting.”
School of Medicine students should sign up now to help race participants in the medical tent at the 49th annual Hospital Hill Run. Come rain or shine, the event is slated to take place on June 4 with the start and finish lines at Kansas City’s Crown Center.
Volunteers will be stationed at the finish line to watch for race participants that need medical attention. Some will help check participants into the medical tent and others will triage participants.
All volunteers will receive a free race t-shirt and food.
The medical staff typically treats 50 to 100 race participants during the event that includes three different races – a 5K, a 10K and a half marathon. Meg Gibson, M.D., director of the UMKC sports medicine fellowship, serves as medical director for the race.
The UMKC-Hospital Hill Run relationship may go back 47 years, but it’s still making history. The 2020 Hospital Hill Run has gone virtual, and participants can run their distance anytime and anywhere they choose before July 1.
This year’s race is sponsored by the UMKC Health Sciences District and UMKC faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends receive a 20% discounted registration using code WPFCUMKC20.
The race, founded in 1973 by School of Medicine founder Dr. E. Grey Dimond, has long been a favorite of runners and walkers nationwide. As in the past, the 2020 virtual race offers three race options – 5K, 10K and half marathon. Participants will receive digital finisher certificates and a swag packet – including t-shirts and medals – in the mail. Here’s how to join the virtual event:
Register and run virtual by July 1. Run or walk your distance on roads, tracks, treadmills, or one of many new race routes throughout town and provided on the HHR virtual website.
Submit your results. Runners and walkers send in their results online and see how they stack up against other participants.
Share your experience. Using the HHR Facebook page and hashtag #HHRVirtual2020, share your run photos, videos and screenshots.
Race organizers have also developed several race challenges (with prizes!), training tip videos and other resources to support participants. Visit https://virtual.hospitalhillrun.com/ for more information.
What could be better for your fitness than taking part in the 47th Annual Hospital Hill Run? How about doing it with a healthy discount on your entry free?
The UMKC Health Sciences District is once again a sponsor for the race, which will be June 6 this year. Through the sponsorship, all UMKC running enthusiasts, faculty, staff, students and alumni can get 20 percent off on registration for any race distance. Just register here and use the code WPFCUMKC20.
Kansas City’s Crown Center again will be the start and finish locations for all three race distances – 5K, 10K and half marathon.
Over the years, more than 170,000 athletes of all levels from across the world have participated in this event. Originated by UMKC School of Medicine founder Dr. E. Grey Dimond, M.D., the Hospital Hill Run served as host to the first USATF National Championship half marathon in 2002. In 2013, the race was recognized by Runner’s World Magazine as the 11th best half marathon in the United States.
UMKC faculty, staff, students and alumni who aren’t participating in the races may serve in one of many volunteer roles. Volunteers are the backbone of the Hospital Hill Run. Individuals and groups are needed to help unwrap medals; pack post-race food packets; sort, stack, and pass out t-shirts; distribute race bibs; set up and staff aid stations; cheer and steer participants on course; award medals; hand out wet towels, food, and hydration at the finish line; and help with event clean up. Volunteers can register here.
The UMKC Health Sciences District is once again pleased to serve as an event sponsor for one of the oldest and most-storied races in Missouri: the 46th Annual Hospital Hill Run, which returns to Kansas City on Saturday, June 1.
This year’s race event will take place on one day, with the starting and finishing lines for all three race distances – 5K, 10K, and half marathon – set up at Kansas City’s Crown Center.
Through the sponsorship, all UMKC running enthusiasts, faculty, staff, students and alumni may receive a 20 percent discount on registration for any race distance. Just use the code: UMKCDISC19. Register here.
Over the years, more than 170,000 athletes of all levels from across the world have participated in this event. Originated by UMKC School of Medicine founder Dr. E. Grey Dimond, M.D., the Hospital Hill Run served as host to the first USATF National Championship half marathon in 2002. In 2013, the race was recognized by Runner’s World Magazine as the 11th best half marathon in the United States.
UMKC faculty, staff, students and alumni who aren’t participating in the races may serve in one of many volunteer roles. Volunteers are the backbone of the Hospital Hill Run. Individuals and groups are needed to help unwrap medals; pack post-race food packets; sort, stack, and pass out t-shirts; distribute race bibs; set up and staff aid stations; cheer and steer participants on course; award medals; hand out wet towels, food, and hydration at the finish line; and help with event clean up. Volunteers may register here.
Nearly 2,900 runners outlasted the weather on June 2 to take part in the 2018 Hospital Hill Run that was sponsored by the UMKC Health Sciences District.
From extreme heat on Friday to high winds and a menacing storm front early Saturday, the weather caused big worries just before the 2018 Hospital Hill Run, sponsored by the UMKC Health Sciences District. But after the starting horn sounded at 7:30 Saturday morning, June 2, cloudy skies and temperatures in the 60s prevailed, making it a good day for the races.
Mid-90s heat caused the usual Friday evening 5K to be pushed to 7 a.m. Saturday, when the 7.7-mile and half-marathon races also were to begin. Because of lightning and a brewing storm, that start time was delayed an additional 30 minutes. But the big storm never materialized along the race routes, and all three runs started and finished in good order at Crown Center.
This was the 45th year for the race, which drew more than 2,800 entrants for its three distances, and the first year for the UMKC Health Sciences District to be the lead sponsor of the race. Several of the dozen institutions that make up the district also provided the physicians, nurses, students and other health care professionals to staff the medical tent for runners in distress.
The cool weather helped, and just more than 30 runners ended up needing any medical help.
School of Medicine students, residents and faculty joined health care professionals from across Hospitall Hill to man the medical tent at the 2018 Hospital Hill Run.
“We had a very light day in the medical tent,” said Margaret E. “Meg” Gibson, M.D., medical director for the Hospital Hill Run and director of the UMKC Sports Medicine Fellowship. “The cool weather definitely was a big factor. However, we still had runners coming in with hyperthermia, high temperatures, and needed immediate treatment. Most presented with fatigue, muscle cramps, needing ice.”
Gibson, who has worked the race for nine years, said 50 to 100 people needing help on race day is more typical. She and her staff were ready for much worse. The medical tent was stocked with cots, ice packs, bandages and even an iced-down tub to treat the worst cases of overheating.
“We had an excellent team of volunteers that provided excellent care,” said Gibson, who practices in the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Truman Medical Center Lakewood. “The medical tent would not be a success without their help. In total, we had 16 students, nine residents and fellows from TMC Lakewood and UMKC, 13 nurses from TMC and the community, and two physical therapists from TMC and one from Children’s Mercy Hospital.”
One of the residents, Cassie From, D.O., packed as much as she could into the morning. She ran the 5K before helping staff the tent.
“I have three kids at home, so I’m used to doing more than one thing at a time, fitting things in when I can,” she said Saturday right after the 5K and before any runners came to the tent needing help. “I wasn’t going to be able to do the race Friday evening because I had to work an overnight shift. But when they moved it to this morning, I had a friend sign me up yesterday. So I worked my shift, came here and ran the race, and now I can help in the tent. This also fills a community service requirement for my residency.”
The unique UMKC Health Sciences District is made up of UMKC; its Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing and Health Studies, and Pharmacy; Children’s Mercy Kansas City and Truman Medical Centers; the Kansas City (Mo.) Health Department; the Missouri Department of Mental Health Center for Behavioral Medicine; Jackson County Medical Examiner; Diastole Scholars’ Center; and Ronald McDonald House Charities of Kansas City.
The Hospital Hill Run was started by E. Grey Dimond, M.D. He also founded the UMKC School of Medicine, which in recent years sponsored the 5K. The UMKC Health Sciences district became the lead sponsor for all the races shortly after the district was founded a year ago.
The race weekend usually draws top runners from around the country, plus many local participants, often from fitness groups. That was the case Saturday for about 15 runners from the Sunday Runday North contingent. They met, stretched, chatted and watched the sky for a while at Crown Center before heading to the starting line.
One member of the group, Matt Kaspar, said this was his first Hospital Hill, and he chose the 7.7-mile race.
“I did a half marathon two weeks ago,” he said, “but this course is more challenging, hillier.”
Perhaps helped by the weather, the division winners in all three races turned in good times.
The first to cross the finish line in the 5K race was Zach Grover, 18, of Lee’s Summit. He won the men’s division in 17:17, followed 13 seconds later by his younger brother, Dylan Grover. Jennifer Butler, 29, of Overland Park, won the women’s division in 22:13. The race had 380 entries.
Zan Johnson, 20, of Olathe, won the men’s division of the 7.7-mile run in 45:12, and Jamie Martens, 42, of Mission, Kansas, won the women’s division in 54:53. That race had 1,004 entries.
An hour and 10 minutes (and 9 seconds) after the starting horn, the half marathon winner crossed the finish line: Austin Bogina, 24, of Arma, Kansas. The women’s division winner, Elle Meyer, 32, finished in 1:21:43. The half marathon had 1,487 entries.
Full race results, along with other information, are available online.
Organizers of the 2018 Hospital Hill Run and presenting sponsor, UMKC Health Sciences District, are providing a series of video training tips to help participants prepare for the Friday and Saturday event on June 1-2 in Kansas City.
One of the most storied road race events in Missouri, it includes a Friday night 5K run and the Saturday 5K rerun, 7.7-mile run and half-marathon.
Go to the Hospital Hill Run YouTube page each Tuesday from now until race weekend for a new video with tips from local sports medicine doctors and trainers on a wide variety of topics. These will look as topics such as running and exercising as a family, staying hydrated during and after training, and preventing running injuries.
In addition to improving your health and wellness, participation in the Hospital Hill Run supports many local charities. This year’s run will benefit the School of Medicine’s Sojourner Health Clinic, a student-run, free safety-net clinic helping the adult homeless and medically indigent in Kansas City.
Volunteers are needed at all events, from handing out race packets, to cheering on athletes, to handing out medals at the finish line. Learn how you can get involved by visiting the Hospital Hill Run web site.
All UMKC staff, faculty, students and alumni may register at a discounted rate or serve as volunteers. Participating staff and faculty can also earn points toward their wellness incentive programs. When registering for the Friday night or Saturday morning race events, use the code SOM2018DISC for 20 percent savings.
The UMKC Health Sciences District is the presenting sponsor for the 2018 Hospital Hill Run – one of the most storied races in Missouri history – on June 1-2, 2018.
Race weekend begins with a 5K run on Friday night – where strollers are welcome and families of all sizes are encouraged to take part. The next morning, runners hit the pavement in the 5K rerun, 7.7 mile and half marathon.
All UMKC staff, faculty, students and alumni may register at a discounted rate or serve as volunteers. Participating staff and faculty can also earn points toward their wellness incentive programs. When registering for the Friday night or Saturday morning race events, use the code SOM2018DISC for 20 percent savings.
In addition to improving your health and wellness, your participation in the Hospital Hill Run supports many local charities, including the School of Medicine’s Sojourner Health Clinic, a student-run, free safety-net clinic helping the adult homeless and medically indigent in Kansas City. And volunteers are needed at all events, from handing out race packets, to cheering on athletes, to handing out medals at the finish line.
The School of Medicine has served as sponsor of the annual Hospital Hill Run 5K race. It is part of the new UMKC Health Sciences District that has agreed to be the presenting sponsor for the full 2018 Hospital Hill Run event.
The UMKC Health Sciences District has agreed to serve as presenting sponsor for the 2018 Hospital Hill Run scheduled for June 1 and 2 in downtown Kansas City.
Hospital Hill Run has a long history with many of the health care providers and facilities that comprise the UMKC Health Sciences District. Partnership in the city’s oldest running event is a natural extension of those existing relationships.
“The UMKC Health Sciences District includes a dozen health institutions along the Hospital Hill Run race routes,” said Margaret Gibson, the event’s Medical Director. Gibson, a UMKC School of Medicine assistant professor of community and family medicine, is affiliated with Children’s Mercy and Truman Medical Centers, and serves as team physician for UMKC Athletics. “Both district partners and the run also share a long history of promoting health and wellness in our community, so it’s a strong, natural partnership.”
Formed in 2017, the UMKC Health Sciences District is a partnership of 12 neighboring health care institutions on Hospital Hill: the University of Missouri-Kansas City and its School of Medicine, School of Nursing and Health Studies, School of Pharmacy and School of Dentistry; Truman Medical Centers; Children’s Mercy; Kansas City (Mo.) Health Department; Missouri Department of Mental Health Center for Behavioral Medicine; Jackson County Medical Examiner; Diastole Scholars’ Center; and Ronald McDonald House Charities of Kansas City. The district collaborates on research, grants, community outreach and shared wellness for employees, faculty, students and surrounding neighborhoods.
Now in its 45th year, Hospital Hill Run has been host to world-class runners, Olympians and more than 170,000 athletes of all levels from across the globe. This new partnership ensures that Hospital Hill Run will continue to enhance its legacy as one of the premier endurance events in the United States.
“The Hospital Hill Run was founded by Dr. E. Grey Dimond, founder of the UMKC School of Medicine, to promote health and fitness in Kansas City,” said Beth Salinger, race director. “This exciting partnership with the UMKC Health Sciences District will continue his vision of bringing health and wellness to the Kansas City Region.”
The Hospital Hill Run began in 1974 with 99 athletes paying a $1 registration fee to run a 6.8-mile course at Crown Center. Today, it has evolved into a weekend event that hosts thousands of athletes over two days and three different event distances.
The event now includes three distances: a Friday night 5K fun run, followed by a 7.7-mile and a half marathon on Saturday morning. Those who wish to challenge themselves further can compete in both the 5K on Friday night and either the 7.7-mile or half marathon on Saturday, called the Hospital Hill Run Re-RUN. All events begin and end on Grand Boulevard directly in front of Crown Center.
A two-day health and fitness expo at the Crown Center Exhibit Hall, a Pasta Party, and two post-race parties open to all will round-out race weekend. In 2017 The Hospital Hill Run Foundation made a $25,000 donation to the Kansas City Police Action League, the 2018 donation will be announced soon.
Jordann Dhuse shared her division winner’s medal with her dog, Milo.
When fourth-year student Jordann Dhuse crossed the finish line at the 2017 UMKC School of Medicine 5K, she wondered what all the fuss was about.
“I was shocked when I realized I had won my division,” said Dhuse, first among the 930 women in the June 2 race.
“I haven’t run all that many races,” said Dhuse, who enjoyed other sports in high school but took up running just a few years ago. “I had won my age group before, but not my division.”
Dhuse runs more “as a way to decompress from studying” than to be competitive, she said. But she does push herself to improve, and her time in this year’s 5K, 23:11, was almost two and a half minutes better than a year ago, when she placed 30th in the women’s division.
“I try to fit in a run most days, three miles if I’m lucky,” she said, and often can be seen running near the school, or walking her dog, Milo.
“He’s a long-haired chihuahua, so he doesn’t run with me,” she said. “But I let him wear my race medal. I think it weighs more than he does.”
It was the fourth year that the 5K took place the Friday evening before the Hospital Hill 10K and Marathon. The move was made to make the shorter race more family friendly, and it draws parents pushing strollers, along with many teams from various workplaces and non-profits.
“I like the atmosphere of this race,” said Dhuse. “You get families, people in town for the weekend, different groups.”
UMKC School of Medicine advancement director Fred Schlichting congradulates Jordann Dhuse.
Dhuse is from the Chicago area and came to UMKC after earning a bachelor’s degree in health science at the University of Missouri.
“I followed my brother, Kyle, to Columbia,” she said. “He’s a year older and fell in love with the campus.”
Then Dhuse decided to go on for a medical degree and was happy she was accepted at UMKC.
“I was attracted by the program’s whole approach, especially the docent system,” she said. “I love being on a team.”
Many of her Gold 3 docent mates are different from her in at least one respect: “I’m interested in emergency medicine, and most of them are interested in internal or family medicine. But we support each other.”