On Sunday, September 20, marathon and half marathon runners will file across the Fox Cities Trestle Trail Bridge in Menasha, the 1,600-foot span both races call the longest pedestrian bridge in Wisconsin. Six days later, on Saturday, September 26, a different crowd, a lot of them in flamingo costumes, will loop through Doty Island during the 46th Annual Otto Grunski Runski. Both mornings look like the same kind of hometown event from a distance. The infrastructure underneath them is not the same at all. One race rides a bridge finished in 2005. The other depends on a project that did not exist until 2018.

Two Race Weekends, Six Days Apart

The Community First Fox Cities Marathon runs its full slate of events from Friday, September 18 through Sunday, September 20. The marquee races, the full marathon and the ThedaCare Half Marathon, both go off Sunday morning. The full marathon starts at 1478 Midway Road in Menasha at 7 a.m. and works through six Fox Cities communities before finishing at Riverside Park in Neenah. The half marathon starts a short drive away, in front of Menasha's Barlow Planetarium, and merges with the full course before Mile 2. Saturday the 19th belongs to the shorter distances, the 5K, 10K, and relay marathon, all based out of Riverside Park in Neenah rather than Menasha.

Six days later, Menasha gets a race morning of its own. The 46th Annual Otto Grunski Runski starts and finishes at Curtis Reed Square on Main Street at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 26.

The Bridge The Marathon Was Built Around

Both the full marathon and the half marathon list the same feature in their own course descriptions: the 1,600-foot Fox Cities Trestle Trail Bridge, which they bill as the longest pedestrian bridge in the state. That bridge opened in 2005, connecting what's now the Village of Fox Crossing to Menasha, and it has carried foot and bike traffic as part of the Friendship State Trail ever since. For marathon organizers, it is the signature photo opportunity on an otherwise flat, road-heavy course. For Menasha residents, it is just the bridge at the end of Broad Street, the one with a covered pavilion in the middle and a few fishing platforms along the rail.

The Bridges Grunski Runski Needed That Didn't Exist Yet

Doty Island is a different story. Getting a footrace from downtown Menasha onto the island and back requires more than one bridge, and for most of the Grunski Runski's history, that kind of route wasn't really an option. The wider trail network that eventually made it possible, known today as Loop the Little Lake, was only about 75 percent finished as of 2012. Menasha and Neenah spent the next several years designing, funding, and finally building two additional trestle crossings to close the remaining gap, with construction starting in November 2017 and wrapping up in spring 2018. Only then did the full 3.5-mile loop exist, tying Fox Crossing, Menasha, and Neenah together around Little Lake Butte des Morts with four trestles and four developed parks.

That 2018 completion is thirteen years after the marathon's marquee bridge opened, and it is what finally gave downtown Menasha a continuous paved connection out to Doty Island. The Grunski Runski's organizers noticed. Starting with the race's 43rd running in 2023, they moved the start and finish to Curtis Reed Square and rebuilt the course to cross the Racine Street Bridge, cut through the island, and follow the city's trail system before looping back downtown. Every running since, including this year's 46th, has kept that same footprint.

The Island In The Middle

Doty Island carries its own history separate from the trail work. It's named for James Duane Doty, Wisconsin's second territorial governor, whose summer home still stands on Lincoln Street. Before Doty, a band of Ho-Chunk people lived on the island until ceding the land to the U.S. government in the 1830s, and Menasha's own name comes from Ho-Chunk and Menominee words tied to the idea of an island.

The Doty Island Community Preservation group, known locally as DICP, treats the Grunski Runski as a neighborhood event rather than something that just happens to pass through. Members set up a cheer tent at the corner of Nicolet and Park Street specifically for runners on race day, the same group that runs an annual historic walking tour of the island and organizes a fall trick-or-treat night with downtown businesses each October. The island shows up on the race route once a year. DICP treats it as home turf year round.

What Race Weekend Actually Feeds And Waters

The Grunski Runski after-party at Curtis Reed Square has kept the same local cast in recent years. Parker John's BBQ and Pizza handles the post-race food, The Sweet Lair provides something sweet, and Club Liquor pours drinks, with classic hits from 103.9 WVBO running the whole time. Finishers have received a vintage-style t-shirt from The Print House and a mini flexi Flo, the race's flamingo mascot, courtesy of Catch Fire Creations. Every dollar raised goes to the Menasha Parks and Recreation Family Assistance Fund, which helps local youth and families access the city's recreation programming throughout the year.

The Rest Of The Route, Any Other Weekend

The same trail system that carries one race a year also carries ordinary foot and bike traffic every other week of it. Wilzke's Pub sits directly along the Trestle Trail, with a curved wooden bar inside a renovated space that fills up during Packers preseason games. A few blocks over on Main Street, Rusted Roost runs a rooftop lounge called The Coop, where Chef Paul's seasonally-inspired menu and live music give downtown Menasha more of a destination feel than a stop along a bike path.

Main Street carries the older standbys too. WeatherVane Restaurant has served the downtown breakfast and brunch crowd since 2011, and Michiels Bar & Grill has been pouring Friday fish fry since 2005. Between those two and newer additions like Bare Bones Brewery and Tight Barrell Distillery, the same stretch that hosts the Grunski Runski's finish line and the half marathon's start line does regular duty as the city's actual gathering spot, race weekend or not.

What A Resident Actually Does With This

If you live near downtown or on Doty Island, September means two separate mornings of extra traffic, not one. Sunday the 20th brings runners and road closures near Midway Road and the Barlow Planetarium, plus a steady stream crossing the Trestle Trail bridge toward Neenah. Six days later, Saturday the 26th closes in tighter around Main Street, the Racine Street Bridge, and the island's residential blocks for a few hours.

For anyone who already walks or bikes the Loop, the two race weekends are a good excuse to notice what's easy to miss on a normal lap: the interpretive marker at the Fox River Canal and lock near the Menasha trailhead, or the view toward James Island from the trestle that closes the loop back into town. The marathon crosses a bridge built in 2005. The Grunski Runski runs through a connection that didn't fully exist until 2018. Both now define what a September Saturday, or Sunday, looks like in this city.

If you're weighing what it's actually like to live along that route year round, not just on race weekend, Matt Jorgenson can walk you through what's currently available near downtown Menasha and the Loop the Little Lake corridor. Book a consultation and get a local read on the market before your next move.