Phil Stewart
Event Director, Credit Union Cherry Blossom
President, Road Race Management, Inc.
Current Professional
Phil Stewart is the Event Director of the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Mile and 5K, the premier springtime running event in Washington, DC. The 10 Mile is part of the Professional Road Running Organization Circuit, annually draws 20,000 runners, and is continually rated as one of the outstanding races in America. The 5K attacts an additional 7,000 participants.
He served as the Editor and Publisher of Road Race Management newsletter from 1982 until 2023, and is the co-author of Organizing Running Events: The Complete Guide to Staging a Successful Road Race, a 500 page compendium covering every aspect of race management. Other past print publications include the Guide to Prize Money Races and Elite Athletes, published annually between 1982 and 2006), and the Running Industry Resource Directory. He oversees content on the Road Race Management website, www.rrm.com which includes the Online Guide to Prize Money Races, the Doping Sanctions site, and the Longest Serving Race Director site in addition to breaking industry news and feature articles on the art of race directing. Stewart also organizes the annual Road Race Management Race Directors’ Seminar and Trade Exhibit, an annual sport-wide industry gathering. He continues in his role as President and CEO of Road Race Management, Inc.
He serves as an emcee at awards ceremonies and press conferences in part because of his vast knowledge of the people and happenings in the sport. He currently provides announcing services for the Quad-City Times Bix 7 Mile (Davenport, IA), the Boilermaker 15k (Utica, NY), and the ACLI Capital Challenge (Washington, DC).
Past Professional
Stewart’s first job after graduating from Woodrow Wilson (now Jackson-Reed) High School in 1968 involved organizing activities including rock concerts at Fort Reno Park, a neighborhood park jointly staffed by Neighborhood Planning Council 3 (funded by the D.C. Government Office of Youth Opportunity Services) and the National Park Service as part of the “Summer in the Parks” program.
Stewart was one of the founders of Running Times magazine (1977), one of the two nationally circulated running magazines at the time.
After leaving Running Times Magazine in 1986, he continued his work on Road Race Management Newsletter, a Running Times publication started in 1982. He expanded the reputation of the annual Race Directors’ Meeting and Trade Exhibit, and developed the new publications as outlined above.
In the mid-1980s, he joined the Cherry Blossom organizing committee as a volunteer and gradually worked his way up to become the volunteer co-race director with Jeff Darman in 1989. He assumed the title of Event Director in 1991.
Stewart received notoriety in September, 1979 when he took the dramatic photos of President Jimmy Carter’s collapse during a 10K road race at Camp David. The photos were published in Sports Illustrated, Time and People magazines and other publications worldwide. Stewart received an Honorable Mention in the “News Picture Story” category by the National Press Photographers Association. The photos were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize the same year. He still owns all rights to the photos. For details about use of the photos, please contact Jeff Darman at jdarman@rrm.com.
Professional Memberships
Stewart has served as President of the DC Road Runners Club; Vice President of Administration of the Road Runners Club of America; Treasurer of the Professional Road Running Organization (PRRO); Treasurer of the USATF Men’s Long Distance Running Committee; and has served on the USATF Board of Directors.
Running Credentials
Stewart began running in his junior year of high school at Washington, DC’s Woodrow Wilson High School (now Jackson-Reed High School) and has never stopped. He placed second in the Washington, DC city meet in the mile (1968) after recording a time of 4:31.4 earlier in that season – the time stood as the school record for 20 years. He was captain of the cross country team at Carleton College in Northfield, MN including being a member of the 1970 conference championship team, and recipient of the school’s award for excellence in cross country.
After college, Stewart began competing in races in the Washington, DC area, where he emerged as one of the top area runners. In 1974 he placed third in the National AAU 50 mile in New York City. The following year he was the first Washington area finisher in the Boston Marathon finishing in 22nd place with a time of 2:19:58. He qualified and participated in the 1976 U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon. In 1977 he placed 15th at the Boston Marathon in 2:22:00.
After his most competitive years, Stewart continued to compete regularly and was the first finisher from the state of Maryland at the 1993 New York City Marathon with a time of 2:56:57. He ran his last sub-3:00 marathon (2:57:46) at the 100th Boston Marathon in 1996. More recently he has balanced his running with biking and spinning and completes periodically in Century bike rides. Since turning 60, he has posted personal best times of 3:40:29 at the 2014 Berlin Marathon and 1:40:30 at the 2014 Disney Half Marathon. In the fall of 2017, he completed his first ultra-marathon in 43 years when he finished the JFK 50 Mile in 12:20:46, which placed him sixth at the time on a U.S. list of runners with the longest span of time between their first and most recent 50 mile races. He completed his 25th Boston Marathon in 2021 at the age of 71. As the years went by, more and more runners passed his 43-year 50-mile span, so, at age 74, he finished the Tunnel Hill 50 Mile in November, 2024 in 13:16:41 to extend his 50-mile completion time span to over 50 years (4th on the U.S. list and 14th on the World list at the time).
Honors and Awards
Stewart was inducted into the DC Road Runners Club Hall of Fame (1998) and the Road Runners Club of America Hall of Fame (2015), was awarded a USATF President’s Award (1988) and won the RRCA’s Browning Ross Spirit of the RRCA award (2005). He received the Gasparilla Distance Classic Association’s “Running Shoe” award (2023) in honor of his 40 years of announcing services to the event.
Personal
Born: February 10, 1950
College: Carleton College, BA (History, 1972)
Family: Father of Mark Stewart and Anna Stewart.
Residence: Lives in Bethesda, MD
Contact
Email: pstewart@rrm.com
Phone: 301-802-2194
Office: 4963 Elm St., Suite 106, Bethesda, MD 20814