Flawless: The 2022 Skyway 10K in review

The weather cooperated, and spirits were high for Sunday’s 5^th annual Skyway 10K road race. Eight thousand people ran, trotted or walked the 6.1 south-to-north miles of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge’s eastern lanes, closed to traffic for the charity event. The majority seemed to take their time, enjoying the spectacular views.

Among them were Alan and Cindy Watson, from across Tampa Bay in Riverview. Each 75 years old, the couple happily explained that they first made the trek in 2020 – and did it again, virtually, in ’21 (the physical race was canceled that year out of pandemic concerns).

The Wilsons kept apace with participants half their age, and younger.

“I got a new knee coming in April, so I want to use what’s left of it today,” Alan explained, adding that he would be playing trumpet and bugle Sunday evening with the Florida Brass at a concert in North Tampa.

Alan and Cindy Wilson.

Since its inception in 2018, the Skyway 10K has generated nearly $2 million for the Armed Forces Families Foundation, providing aid through infrastructure projects that support military personnel and their families.

Not surprisingly, the Skyway 10K is executed with military precision. All runners, as well as volunteers, staff and media, are required to be in the Tropicana Field parking lot by 4:30 a.m. At precisely 4:45, the first of 160 school buses (leased from Hillsborough and Pasco counties) roll out for the rest area on the south side of the Skyway, in Manatee County.

At 6:10, the flag is waved for a group of hand-bikers, supported by the Wounded Warriors organization, to make the first crossing. The sun is just starting to peek over the southwestern horizon.

Ten minutes later, a blast from a Howitzer gun, provided by the U.S. Army, signals the first wave of lined-up runners (around 1,500 strong) to begin making for the other side.

Buses are waiting om the north side to ferry the tired, sweaty – and mostly happy – runners and walkers back to Tropicana Field.

Skyway 10K return runners Frank and Bea Eates of Pinellas Park were first in line and ready to go. “Our favorite part is when we make it to the other side of the bridge without stopping. I don’t stop running,” said Frank. “I always keep going.”

It’s been this way since Year One, said event organizer Mike Judge Sunday morning, as he watch the hand-bikers roll into place at the starting line.

“We had a year of meetings, and planning, and crossing every “t” and dotting every ‘I’ before we ever got to do the first one,” Judge said. “We had to demonstrate to FDO, FLHSMV, FHP, the U.S. Coast Guard, Manatee County, Hillsborough County, Pinellas County, St. Petersburg … it was a lot of agencies that we had to interact with.”

Judge explained that it takes “about a thousand people” to make the event happen. “Those are volunteers, school bus drivers … and the people that put down all the road cones and the Porta-Patties. And the water stations.

“It’s a huge operation. We get the bridge at 3:30 and we bus 8,000 people down from Tropicana Field, and get them off the bridge and the bridge re-opens by 11. Truly, from a logistical standpoint, it’s a monumental effort and achievement.”