New for Bloomsday this year: Snapchat filters

Some 8,000 people have already signed up for Spokane’s annual Bloomsday race, which will take place Sunday, May 6.

“We’re running significantly ahead of last year,” said race director Don Kardong at a kick-off news conference Tuesday.

New for 2018, racers will be able to use location-based Snapchat filters to share photos with Bloomsday-specific frames.

“That is for our younger participants, probably not for me,” Kardong said, to general laughter.

As in past years, most entrants will register online, but paper forms are still available at locations around town, including Providence hospitals, Washington Trust Bank, Albertsons and Safeway stores, Franz Bakery and Premera.

Providence Health Care and Kaiser Permanente are teaming up to offer a free training clinic on Saturday mornings starting March 17, which will include information about training, warm-up and a progressively longer run, jog or walk. Participants can register at providence.org/Bloomsday.

Spokane Guilds’ School and Neuromuscular Center is the official 2018 Bloomsday charity. The 57-year-old nonprofit provides therapy and support services for kids with disabilities and developmental delays, including Down syndrome and muscular dystrophy.

Spokane Guilds’ School Executive Director Dick Boysen said a kid who received physical therapy with them years ago is now preparing to run his 14th Bloomsday race, even after doctors told his parents he’d likely never be able to walk.

Boysen said the school has applied several times to be the Bloomsday nonprofit and was happy to be chosen.

“They’re a quality organization,” he said.

This year’s poster is the second in a series of monochromatic prints showing a group of runners with letters that will eventually spell “Bloomsday” superimposed. The 2017 poster was a dark shade of blue; this year’s continues the series with a green palate.