Balboa Park 8 Miler

Balboa Park 8 Miler

We have been working closely with the City of San Diego, Balboa Park and the San Diego Police Department to understand the best options for the 2020 edition of the race. However, given the restrictions this summer on large events due to COVID-19 and with your safety in mind, we must change the 66th Annual Balboa Park 8 Miler to be a virtual run.

For those already registered, below we’ve outlined the various options for your registration, as well as some other FAQs, and hope you still join us virtually! For those that are not signed up, registration is still open! For 2021 only, we will be offering the Balboa Park 8 Miler Challenge medal (as featured further below) for those participants that run 2020 virtually and 2021 in person!

This is San Diego Track Club’s largest annual fundraiser, allowing us to continue to support San Diego’s largest running club and various running programs and initiatives around the city! If you have more questions for us, please let us know at info@balboapark8miler.com

Q) What are my registration options?

Option 1) VIRTUAL: We’d love for you to still join us virtually! We’ve put together a number of perks for you to still join us. To do so, select “I Will Run Virtual”. Virtual runner perks will include:

• You will receive your t-shirt, bib and medal (pictures below). We will host an in-person packet pick-up on Saturday, July 25th at Road Runner Sports. If you are not comfortable coming in person to packet pick-up, we will mail your participant goods to you. But by coming to packet pick-up, that provides a huge cost savings to San Diego Track Club (so thank you!).
• Subject to park availability with COVID-19, we will encourage runners to come join us on Saturday, August 1st to run your 8 miles. We will share a course route and setup some activations at the start/finish line (as allowed by Balboa Park). Following your run, we will have some great discounts negotiated with the neighboring restaurants to celebrate!
• New for 2021, we are offering the Balboa Park 8 Miler Challenge! If you run the 2020 Balboa Park 8 Miler virtually and join us in 2021 for next year’s Balboa Park 8 Miler, we will have a challenge medal waiting for you! See below to check out the challenge medal.

Option 2) DEFER: For those that do not want to choose option 1, we can defer your registration to the 2021 Balboa Park 8 Miler. To do so, select “Defer to 2021.”

Option 3) DONATION: If you are not interested in running virtually or deferring, we can convert your registration payment to be a tax-deductible donation to the San Diego Track Club.

To officially select your choice, follow the steps below

1. Click here to visit your participant dashboard and sign into Race Roster.
2. In the upper right corner, click "Edit Registration" - then click "Registration Questions"
3. Update the appropriate information by selecting your choice from the drop-down and click "Save"

If you have trouble accessing your Race Roster account, contact the support team at 1-855-969-5515 and they will change your address for you. To help, please mention that you are a participant for the Balboa Park 8 Miler (ID 29655).

Q) Why did you make this change, even as the City of San Diego has begun to open up?

A) While certain activities have opened up in San Diego, such as beaches and in person dining, large participatory events have not been approved. Additionally Balboa Park Committee has announced they are not ready to determine the process whether events of any size can occur this Summer or Fall at the park.

Q) Why can’t San Diego Track Club offer every participant a refund?

The Balboa Park 8 Miler is the largest fundraising event for the San Diego Track Club, thus directly benefiting the club’s mission of supporting and developing running in the San Diego community. The event is also one of the primary drivers of revenue for the organization to operate. Given the unexpected circumstances, the club does not have the financial resources to provide refunds to every participant. Instead, our team has worked hard to still provide a special experience on August 1st. By joining us virtually or deferring to 2021, you are continuing to support the San Diego Track Club. We greatly appreciate you for your understanding and your support through the changes this year!

As we receive more questions, we’ll be updating our coronavirus FAQ page HERE. In the meantime, if you have questions regarding this event, please email us at info@balboapark8miler.com.

As we have further updates, we’ll continue to email you and keep you in the loop. We really appreciate your support and hope to have you at our start line again soon!

Balboa Park 8 Miler Team