Running Journal Columnist Releases New Book on Cooper River Bridge Run

Cedric Jaggers is a longtime columnist for Running Journal. His monthly Down The Road column is a favorite of Running Journal readers. Jaggers was elected to the South Carolina Road Runners Hall of Fame in 1992. A noted statistician, he has compiled an exhaustive list of records from races across South Carolina. Jaggers has become known as the historian of one of the state's favorite races, the Cooper River Bridge Run 10K, held in Charleston, SC. Jaggers’ new book about the race, Charleston’s Cooper River Bridge Run, will be published this month by Evening Post Books, a division of Evening Post Publishing.

Jaggers has run in every Cooper River Bridge Run 10K except the first one in 1978 — he broke his leg playing soccer that year — and this book details his own decline from a runner who broke the 40-minute barrier to one just happy to participate. His wife, Kathy, may be a more determined runner. She ended up in the medical tent at the end of the race more than once, yet in 1998 she won third place Grand Master prize money the first year it was offered.

“I never thought of myself as an historian,” Jaggers says, “only as a runner. My highest overall finish in any Bridge Run was 60th and my highest age group placement was third. But I kept up with the race every year and added another paragraph or two summarizing each race.”

It is those 33 years of observing and running that make Charleston’s Cooper River Bridge Run such a unique book. Nobody has a better perspective or more information.

The book contains the names of every prizewinner ever recognized in the race. Jaggers says people used to call and ask him to look up a time and place that they ran sometime in the mid-’90s. Impossible, he would explain. By that time the race had grown too big — there were more than a thousand finishers every year after the first race — and the record keeping had not yet been computerized. With this book, runners can look up their own prize-winning times.

In 1993 race director Benita Schlau asked Jaggers to write a history of the race for the Bridge Run Committee. He included photocopies of results from 1978 to 1987 that the committee did not have.

Jaggers was inducted into the Cooper River Bridge Run Hall of Fame in 2002.
“When I consider the great runners and contributors to the race, I feel inadequate and unworthy of the honor,” he says, “but it is one I really appreciate.”

Jaggers loves the Bridge Run and brags on its organization and accomplishments, including:
• The BR was an early adopter of timing every runner and mailing the race results.
• The BR was an early adopter of using a certified course to ensure an accurate race distance.
• The BR was a leader in presenting Masters Division and then Grand Masters Division awards.
•The BR was an early adopter of presenting proportionately deeper age group awards in the larger age groups.

“A race that grows from 766 finishers in 1978 to 33,057 finishers in 2010 is obviously doing a lot of things right,” Jaggers says. “And good races do not happen by accident but due to the hard work of a lot of people, and I wish I could thank them all. I love the Expo. I love the race. I love the post-race crowd in Marion Square waiting for or ignoring the awards ceremony. I love it all. So now here is my chance to tell you, not about my Bridge Run, but about everybody’s Cooper River Bridge Run.”

The book will be available March 26 online at http://www.EveningPostBooks.com. The price is $24.95. The book may be pre-ordered from now until March 25 through the website. The price is $21.95 and is guaranteed to ship before race weekend.