The Monumental Challenge Marathon has been the running event during the fall in the Black Hills for more than 30 years. However, runners who planned to take part in this year's event, which was to be run Oct. 3, were notified Saturday that it had been canceled.

"There are a number of reasons," said Steve Kurtenbach, owner of AllSportCentral of Sioux Falls which owns and operates the Black Hills running event. "In previous years, at a minimum we broke even, and last year we didn't break even. In fact, we lost quite a bit of money."

Kurtenbach said the decision on whether to have this year's event is something that has been in discussion for some time.

"We actually had not updated any of the information for the race on the Web site and only had 2008 information because we weren't sure we were going to have it," he said. "We had enough business commitments that we had to look at different options."

Those who did sign up and send in money to participate in this year's race were given a variety of options, which included a refund or transferring the money to next year's race.

Kurtenbach said one option for this year's event was running a course similar to the one that took place in 2007, which did not include starting either of the two marathons from either Mount Rushmore or Crazy Horse Memorial.

Although Kurtenbach said financial issues were one of the major issues for not running the marathon, the issue of securing permits has also been raised. Officials from Hill City said no requests have been presented for permits this year, and no one had attended any city meetings to secure them.

Since AllSportCentral took over the marathon from the Rapid City Convention & Visitors Bureau in 2005, there have been issues with the route of the race. In a 2005 Journal article, Hill City residents objected, some strongly, to the roadblocks and traffic problems on Deerfield Road and Hill City's Main Street, forcing late modifications to the route.

The route of the marathon has been changed many times over the years with permits needed through many local and national entities with runners often running on narrow roads and some heavy traffic areas.

The marathon is a popular one among runners and provides a good bookend to the Deadwood-Mickelson Trail Marathon, which takes place in early summer.

"There are runners called the 50 staters who try to run a marathon in all 50 states, and for some of them, they can't get to the Mickelson one so they really like the Monumental Challenge," said Roger Heacock, a veteran of 27 marathons, including three Mickelsons of various lengths. "By missing this race, not only does it hurt the race, but you miss the chance to bring a lot of tourism to the area."

The marathon has traditionally drawn good numbers and had as many as 771 registered runners as recently as 2007, but at the time of the race's cancellation this year, there were just 189 registered runners.

Tim Raben, the president of the Black Hills Runners Club, said there was a lot of speculation within the running community as to whether this year's race would actually be held, which kept a lot of people from signing up. Raben ran the marathon just once, but has fond memories of it.

"I ran it in 2007, and I thought it was a wonderful race, and I was able to qualify for the Boston Marathon through that race," he said.

The marathon began under the name of the Black Hills Marathon and was organized by the Black Hills Runners Club before it was passed on to the Convention & Visitors Bureau and finally sold to Kurtenbach's company. At that time, he had lofty goals for the race.

"Our goal is not to have 1,000 people, but 5,000 to 15,000 people," he said in a 2007 interview with the Journal. "We want to make it a major event on the national scene."

Not having the marathon for a year - Kurtenbach said it was his hope to have the race again in 2010 - hurts area runners, but many do not believe it means the end of the race as a whole.

"This marathon always seemed like Rapid City's marathon, and it was a great way to showcase the beauty of this area," local runner Amy Yanni said. "I think if you brought in someone who really knew how to put on a race, to run it, it would certainly come back."