Ten years ago, Darcy Budworth had a vision of running that went against the grain.

She had run plenty of traditional running races—10Ks, half marathons, and marathons—but had grown tired of that regimented routine and thought there was something missing in the running community. 

At the time, marathons and half marathons were booming, but younger runners just weren’t keen on falling in line and doing what their parents did. Twentysomething millennials wanted something with more grit, spice, and excitement—and, of course, something that would stand out on social media. Back then, The Color Run and other novelty runs were all the rage, and mud-infused obstacle course racing was on the rise. But even those had too much structure and formality, Budworth thought.

That was the genesis of Take the Bridge, which Budworth, then 32, launched in 2015 as an unsanctioned running race in New York City that was a mix of hard, fast, authentic running, and a nighttime urban experience with little structure and a disruptive, punk rock vibe.

“It’s good to have big races to train for,” Budworth said. “They’re very structured. There are marathons everywhere, and you can find training plans all over, and you follow a plan that includes speed workouts, long runs, tempo runs, and easy days. It’s very regimented and you know exactly what you need to do to get to where you’re going. And if you stick to this plan, ‘this is what you get,’ you know? But at a certain point, I started to just get tired of ‘this is what you do and this is how you do it.’”

What are Unsanctioned Races? 

Unsanctioned running races are events that are not officially recognized or governed by an athletic governing body (such as USA Track & Field or World Athletics), but they’re typically informal, grassroots, and underground in nature, and they often prioritize creativity, community, or rebellion over structure and rules.

“I wanted to create something that I thought was missing in our community,” Budworth said. “And there were obviously a few other unsanctioned races happening when I created this. I felt like these kinds of races brought a new source of love and joy within racing, and I wanted to bring that to other people. What I think that these races do is create some unpredictability and, um, so often they’re thrown at the last minute.

It was at a time when modern unsanctioned racing and local run crew culture was in its infancy. 

New York City’s Midnight Half originated in 2011, with an 11 p.m. start time from a Chinatown club in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The Speed Project, a 340-mile relay-style race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas with no set route, no permits, and minimal rules, was launched two years later and continues to thrive. (TSP has since held races in Chile and France.) About the same time, Mike Saes, founder of NYC Bridge Runners, and Charlie Dark, founder of Run Dem Crew), organized Bridge the Gap that sometimes host unsanctioned races to connect cities and cultures. 

In July 2023, the unsanctioned Williamsburg Bridge Marathon drew about 35 runners after founder Matt White dropped a post about it in the r/RunNYC subreddit two weeks earlier. It was a 26.2-mile race held entirely on the 1 1/4-mile bridge spanning the East River and connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. White was inspired to organize it after getting rejected from entering the 2023 New York City Marathon.

In all cases, unsanctioned racing has connected the dots between running at its broadest and more core existence, Budworth said.

There are so many different variables in Take the Bridge events that it just creates a different structure and an organic structure to how these events unfold, she added.

“And it shakes things up to the point that you’re no longer like looking at your pace,” she said. “Instead you’re really focused on how you are in the element right now and being really responsive to things and pacing off other people and just being very present within yourself while you’re racing. I think in the bigger (half marathons and marathons), there’s so many that you get lost in the crowd and you can zone out at times and that’s not something that you can do in these races. They’re smaller. Every single person is seen and every single person is cheered.” 

And, she added, that there’s something about throwing people into the unknown in a city at night and letting them rise to the occasion despite, perhaps, being a bit scared to try something new. 

“You’re trying not to get lost, while running hard, while looking at your phone, while navigating around cars and pedestrians,” longtime Take the Bridge runner and volunteer Caitlin Wilterdink told Outside last year. “It’s a lot, and one of those moments where you will definitely make a plan and then throw it out the window.” Said Parker Caton, a Brooklyn-based runner who’s run several Take the Bridge events: “You may get lost, but that’s kind of part of the fun.”

Take The Bridge Evolves

Although Take Bridge grew in popularity and in the number of events (often 10 to 15 unsanctioned races in a given year), Budworth has continued to help it evolve through the years, but all the while keeping it raw and real based on input from each local community. (“The younger people know what’s more hip and sexy and, you know, like what people want, you know?” she said.)

Changes have included adapting to each local city’s features, creating a point-scoring system, attracting more women to run at night in a city, and even hosting all-women’s events. (That’s created a shift in the events, which lately have had more women than men participating.)

In 2022 and 2023, Budworth put together Take the Bridge events on the trails near Lake Tahoe under the name of Take the Ridge. Runners received checkpoints via email on the day of the event, but unlike traditional trail running events, it was a race in which shortcuts weren’t forbidden but actually celebrated.

Now as it is about to celebrate its 10th year, Budsworth is innovating Take the Bridge again. Instead of hosting many events in several cities, she’s retooled it to one annual race. This year’s race on July 25 at 8 p.m. will be held in New York City, back where it all began on the Queensboro Bridge in 2015, when 20 runners raced over one length of the 3,724-foot bridge.

This year’s event is a 10-mile race with 400 participants, but runners won’t know the possible routes through parts of the city until checkpoints are revealed at the event’s check-in on race day. It’s bound to sell out (but entries are still available for $85) and bound to be a fun post-race party. And yet, as much as it’s a social gathering, it’s also an intense race with a $2,750 prize purse.

While big shoe brands have entered the picture—for a while Salomon was the sponsor, now it’s Saucony—Budworth has kept it high on the authenticity scale. The idea of having one marquee race every year follows the pattern of runners signing up for one goal race marathon or half marathon ever year. Budworth thinks Take the Bridge is worthy of that kind of focus, if only because each one is always so full of stimulation, and raw racing action, even if forever achieved in an unconventional way.

“Often when I do these races, I show up and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m going to just take it easy and I’m just gonna enjoy it,” she said. “And then once you get out there, the energy is such that it’s hard not to race it. And you’re so caught up in reacting to this, doing that, and just being present in your race. You have to be thinking on your toes at all times pacing off people you know, you can run as fast as. And then I crossed the finish line, and I realized I’ve run faster than I normally do for a 5K.”

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