The overnight low in Starkville was 18 degrees, but Brad Jones was out on Main Street at 5 a.m. Saturday morning, getting ready for the Frostbite Half-Marathon, 10K and 5K races.
“Wes (Gordon) will start setting up the course, and I’ll start setting up tents and tables for our sponsors,” said Jones, vice president of commercial lending at Renasant Bank and, along with Gordon, co-coordinator of the Frostbite.
Jones grew up in Texas and Florida, but Starkville runs in the family. His parents are MSU graduates, and his grandfather, Art Davis, was the Football Writers Association of America college player of the year in 1955 and is a member of both the Mississippi Sports and Mississippi State Athletics halls of fame.
Jones’ sport was baseball, and he was an integral part of three Bulldogs teams, mostly at first base. In 203 career games, Jones hit .285, including .301 in 2005. He was a consistent run-producer with 37 RBIs in 2004 and 2005 and 35 in 2006.
But Jones is in the State record books for one specific day: April 6, 2004. He belted three home runs against Southern Miss, tying a team record he still shares with eight other players, including former major-leaguers Rafael Palmeiro and Del Unser.
“Wes was an athletic trainer at MSU when I was playing baseball,” Jones said. “We ran in similar circles and got to know each other. I’ve known Wes for close to 20 years.”
The connection to the Frostbite was still a few years away. Back in those days, Oktibbeha County Hospital organized the event, which has been around since the mid-1980s and drew 200 to 300 runners most years.
“I used to put on a knockoff Tough Mudder,” Jones said, referencing the well-known obstacle course race. “I was a race director for that for two years and built up a relationship with the lady from OCH, Elaine Schimpf, who was in charge of the old Frostbite race. She had done it for eight or nine years and wanted to take a step back, and she turned to me.”
Jones says he fell in love with Starkville when he arrived on the MSU campus, and he and Gordon decided to change the race’s format to maximize the role of his adopted hometown.
“It used to be an annual half-marathon, done for about 30 years from Pheba to OCH straight on the highway,” Jones said. “A lot of traditionalists love that route.”
Now it starts and ends on Main Street in Starkville, with 10K and 5K races added to bring in more people. That has worked, as Jones said more than 700 people took part Saturday, the most Frostbite has ever had.
Race day was a family affair for Jones, perhaps by force, the married father of two boys joked.
“You wouldn’t say that they’re runners, but I’m making them run on Saturday,” he said before the race. “It’s better than sitting inside. If I have to be out there, they have to be out there.”
Both sons survived the Frostbite 5K, with 13-year-old Brody Jones finishing in 29 minutes, 3 seconds, and 11-year-old Archer Jones crossing the finish line in 37:41. The last half-marathoner crossed 3 hours, 22 minutes and 45 seconds after the 9 a.m. start.
According to Jones, a lot of preparation went into those three-plus hours.
“We’ve got several months leading up to it,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of logistics with volunteers and knowing where they go. We almost had a port-a-potty debacle. Guy canceled yesterday.”
Columbus-based GoBox came to the rescue on that one. But there was plenty of other work to do.
“You have to pick a date,” Jones said. “Make sure the dates aren’t coinciding with any of the other regional races … We don’t want to compete with the big races like St. Jude. Then it’s a matter of letting the city know and get to them. Luckily, they know how we operate, but there are still steps we’ve got to go through: fire department, police department, sanitation.
“Then there’s ordering swag. We’ve got to estimate sizes and quantities several weeks ahead. We get a huge surge the week of (the event) because everybody wants to see what the weather’s going to do. We’ve got to prepare for that and anticipate that. We don’t want to order too much, but we don’t want to order too little, either.”
It’s more than enough for two people, which is why there are co-coordinators, Jones said.
“If one person tried to handle it, it would get overwhelming trying to get everything organized,” he said.
“We do most of it together,” Jones continued. “(Gordon) handles volunteers, and he handles the course. Once the race starts, he’ll start driving the course and make sure there are no stragglers. And I’ll handle the Main Street environment and be the point person for race day. It’s a big job.”
And just think, there’s another Frostbite less than a year away.
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