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Sterling Martin, a longtime runner and retired Davidson College coach and sports administrator, has been a vital part of Run for Green since it began in 2006. A key part of his role is installing the signs that keep runners on course.

For the 20^th straight year, runners will rise early on the morning of September 27 for what’s become a fall tradition on local streets: the Davidson Lands Conservancy’s Run for Green.

More than 500 runners are expected for this year’s 10K and 5K races and one-mile fun run (sign up here). The half-marathon that’s normally part of the run was suspended for this year because of road construction along its route into the River Run community.

The annual races began in 2006 to help cover the modest salary of the conservancy’s first executive director. They have become the annual fundraiser for the small land trust, which is now nationally accredited and celebrating its 25^th anniversary.

The Run for Green has attracted more than 800 runners in some past years. A September date was initially picked with the idea that its half-marathon could be a training run for the Charlotte Observer Marathon.

Just as important as runners are the 100 or more volunteers who help stage the races – marking courses, registering competitors, offering water, setting up tents, and greeting sweaty runners at the finish line near the town Green. Sponsorships by dozens of local businesses underwrite the event, many of them year after year.

Nobody knows more about what it takes to put on the races than Sterling Martin, a former board member who – luckily for the conservancy – was a longtime competitive runner, track coach, and sports administrator at Davidson College. Martin retired in 2006 and has been vital to the Run for Green since it started.

Martin recalls brainstorming with other board members about how to raise money for the then-fledgling conservancy. “It occurred to me that we ought to sponsor a run as a way to raise money,” he said.

The idea for a marathon fit squarely with Davidson’s running tradition. When Martin arrived as a freshman in 1959, Davidson College held its annual Cake Race as a way of recruiting track team members. Faculty wives baked cakes for the winners. Martin won the race and bloomed into a three-year, all-conference runner. Nearly a century after it started in 1930, the Cake Race is still being run.

The conservancy also bloomed. Hiring its first, part-time executive director, environmental educator Roy Alexander, in 2006 marked a turning point in its evolution, Martin said.

“Roy was part of a maturation process when we realized we could do more than we had otherwise,” he said. “At that point, we were just beginning to see what we could become but really didn’t have any money to do it.”

The conservancy has helped protect more than 700 acres, stewards 800 acres and has in the works conservation of another 1,000 acres in and around Davidson. Its work has expanded into tree and wildlife habitat restoration, trail, greenway and park stewardship, and educational programming. Routing the Run for Green largely on greenways, as it has been from the beginning, shows off the town’s growing trail network.

Staging the races has been fun, Martin said, but he turns 84 this year and hopes someone will take over his role.

“Sterling is quietly tenacious,” said former conservancy board Chair Paul Freestone, who now lives in Charleston. “At this stage of his life he doesn’t want to be the person doing detailed project management,” which DLC provides. “But as we’re getting close to race day, he sets up the race courses and the details of how to make it a really great participant experience: where are the water stations, the ratio of (sports drink) powder mix to water, what kinds of cups, special things for weather conditions, where course monitors need to be, where do the EMTs need to be, where the Porta Potties need to be.”

Then there’s the after-race chores: Picking up signs, taking down tents, and packing everything away for next year.

“There was a time that the board questioned whether it was worth doing, because if you do it right you do have to chase down a lot of things,” said former board member Gordon Clark, who’s helped Martin set up the course.

Corporate sponsorships, which Clark said grew under the leadership of Freestone and former executive director Dave Cable, helped make the event more financially viable. So far this year, 33 sponsors have committed their support for the Run for Green.

Trane Technologies, the title sponsor, has its North American headquarters in Davidson and has supported the event for at least 13 straight years. MSC is another longstanding major sponsor.

"We’re honored to support Run for Green and the Davidson Lands Conservancy and its mission to protect and preserve the natural landscapes that make our community so special,” said Scott Tew, Trane’s global head of sustainable strategy. “Just as runners go the distance in this race, we’re committed to doing our part in caring for the environment and strengthening the place we all call home.”

Community support -- some neighborhoods cheer on the runners year after year – and the interest of runners also helped propel the event from year to year. Even in the Covid year of 2020, when all races were run virtually, 663 runners took part.

The Run for Green normally needs about 100 volunteers, says Carly Schiano, the conservancy’s community engagement leader. Without the half-marathon this year, about 40 fewer volunteers will be needed. Go here to sign up.

“I just love to see the cooperation of so many elements of the town,” Freestone said. “The college, police department, the administrative folks for the town, Main Street vendors, the volunteers, and people who would come out to cheer on the runners.”