Photo Provided Several Ohio Valley residents attend a past Santa’s Spirit Sprint in Barnesville to raise money for needy families during the holiday season.

BARNESVILLE — Get your running shoes ready — it’s time for the annual Santa’s Spirit Sprint 5k and 1-mile Run and Walk.

Race Director Carl Kondrach said the 5K and 1-mile races are held back-to-back so attendees have time to participate in both races if they desire. Anyone who completes both distances will receive a “challenge medal” as a way to congratulate them and encourage the community to stay active.

Both races are scheduled for Saturday and begin and end at The Rock gymnasium, located at 440 Watt Ave. in Barnesville. The 1-mile race starts at 2 p.m., while the 5K race begins at 2:30 p.m.

Kondrach encourages participants to arrive at least 45 minutes early to ensure they find a parking place and have time to register if not already pre-registered.

Registration for the races is $30 for the 5K and $21 if you only wish to participate in the 1-mile run. To participate in both races, Kondrach offers a joint registration deal priced at $41 for both races.

Kondrach said the money raised from the races will go toward providing Christmas to families in need during the holiday season. He said when starting the race with friends, organizers came up with the idea to contact area schools asking to be informed of students who may be in need during the holidays.

“They would be the best equipped to tell us who some of the less fortunate kids are in the area,” Kondrach said of asking Ohio Valley schools for help. “We’ve kept that tradition alive, and we average between 17 and 25 kids a year. And my wife’s responsibility with the race is to contact these families, either the children’s parents, grandparents, adoptive parents, guardians or whoever has custody.”

Kondrach added that when his wife Jessica contacts these families, she asks what each child living in the home wants for Christmas.

“She tries to fill their wish lists of things that they normally wouldn’t have during Christmas. We do a majority of our shopping during Black Friday as well as hit up a lot of the businesses in and around Belmont County for donations,” Kondrach said. “A lot of the race participants will bring an item or two that was on that list that hasn’t been fulfilled yet or will make a cash donation or donate a gift card.”

Kondrach added that he and Jessica will deliver the presents unwrapped to these families a week before Christmas so the families can wrap them and still feel like they are a part of the gift-giving experience.

“We don’t wrap the gifts or anything. That way they can still feel like they’re a part of it instead of just giving something away that they don’t even know what’s inside of the boxes,” he said.

One of the reasons Kondrach believes his race differs from many of the races in the tri-state area is that he provides free food and drinks covered by the registration fee.

“Most races are for some type of a charity, which is great, but what I try to do is to counsel all new race directors not to get completely focused on your charity and forget about the people who make the event possible, which are your runners and walkers both competitive and casual,” he said. “Without those folks, there is no race and less money to give to your charity. So I make sure I go above and beyond when I put my events on.”

Kondrach added that in addition to the free food and drinks, he makes sure that all of his races have high-quality awards as well as door prizes that can be awarded to any registered racer at no additional cost.

The top five overall participants in both running and walking the 1-mile and 5K races in the male and female categories for each race will receive a medal. The top three participants in the “masters division,” which is people 40 and older, and the 5- to 10-year-old age group will also receive a medal in both the male and female categories.