Youth runner Macey Higgason, 7, finished sixth overall in the 2015 Endurance Race Services series.
“Macey generally wins her age group. She is the top sixth overall in both male and female and I think she is third overall in the female class,” ERS Race Director Daniel Pavlin said. “But out of 4,500 people, she placed sixth.”
Another local runner, Cuong Le, mad the list in the No. 5 spot overall.
More than 20 runners from Liberty County participated in the 2015 ERS series of races, many coming in among the top 60 runners for the group, including Higgason’s mom, Karen, sisters, Megan and Kelsey Higgason, and father, Rusty Higgason.
Pavlin said the ERS series works with local charities.
“We worked with over 40 different charities this past year,” he said. “Every race is a different charity.”
He said they started putting races together a few years ago for fun. Soon, they realized they could network with charities that were already looking to host a race event, allowing the charity to focus on drawing in the most funds. In turn the ERS group organized and planned the race events.
“What we wanted to do was consolidate these charities working together, so we formed the ERS Race Series and we started tracking how many runners would be involved, and we made a point system based on participation, volunteering and speed,” Pavlin said.
The runners accumulate points throughout the race year, earning awards at the end of the season. Points are awarded based on race participation, bonus speed points and spirit points for folks who run in costumes or spread the fun through social media.
According to Pavlin, ERS Race Series helped to bring in $100,000 for charities.
ERS is now prepping for the 2016 ERS Race series, which starts Dec. 27 with the Jingle Jog or ERS Championship run.
“It has really grown into something a lot bigger than we could do on our own,” Pavlin said. “Both myself and Steve White, we have a lot of fun doing this and we give back and try and make it more efficient for these charity events in raising funds through sponsorships.”
Attempts to contact Le were unsuccessful.