The core of our running festival, the marathon, began in the 1990s as Humpy's Marathon. In 2008 it grew to include a Thursday through Sunday celebration of races and was newly dubbed Big Wild Life Runs in accordance with Anchorage's brand "Big WIld Life." In the fall of 2015, we adopted the name Anchorage RunFest to lend more attention to our home site, Anchorage, and to bring attention to the diversity of ways we celebrate running. The Anchorage RunFest attracts runners from all over the United States and across the globe. The number of participants continues to grow as individual runners and groups both large and small travel to Anchorage to run the fast and flat Anchorage Mile, and our scenic 5K, 13.1 mile, 26.2 mile, and 49K courses.