Thousands to participate in 48th annual Cooper River Bridge Run

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Thousands of runners and walkers will line up Saturday morning in anticipation of the 48^th annual Cooper River Bridge Run.

Prepare for warmer temperatures for this year’s bridge run. Saturday morning will start cool in the early morning, but temperatures could reach the record high of 89°.

The event will get underway at 8:00 a.m., with racers expected to be in their assigned section by 7:00 a.m.

Once the race begins, participants in the wheelchair category will make their way over the bridge, followed by the elite runners, and each heat will be released until all runners and walkers cross the start line.

Krige Schabort was the first to cross over the finish line in the men’s wheelchair division during last year’s race with a time of 25:28, and Aerelle Jones finished for the women’s wheelchair division with a time of 37:07. Herman Garic, 35, holds the division’s record at 22:34 set during 2022’s event.

For the male elite runners, Ali Abdilmana, of Ethiopia, earned a $10,000 prize after crossing the finish line with a time of 27:54, and Sarah Naibei, of Kenya, won the prize for elite female runners in 2023, coming in with a time of 31:42.

There are 15 elite males and 15 elite females competing in the 2025 race.

The starting line for the Cooper River Bridge Run is located close to Simmons Street in Mount Pleasant, and heat markers begin near the Moultrie Shopping Center.

Runners will head down Coleman Boulevard, cross the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, and head down Meeting Street onto Woolfe Street before making their way down King Street, up Wentworth Street, and back up Meeting Street to Marion Square.

Today’s bridge run is drastically different from the first held in 1978, where 766 participants crossed over the Silas Pearman Bridge. Now, tens of thousands of runners will cross the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge as they make their way to the finish line near Marion Square.

The race was rerouted from the Silas Pearman Bridge to the Grace Memorial Bridge in 1980 and later moved back to the Silas Pearman in 1995. It moved to the newly constructed Ravenel Bridge in 2006.