Our Mission

Final Stretch is dedicated to personal wellness through physical activity and competition for all fitness levels and ages. It is our mission to provide a quality, fun, safe, friendly, and competitive platform to challenge and test personal training regimens.

About Us

What makes a race great? Final Stretch is dedicated to providing every athlete, at every level a high quality experience from registration to the finish line. We embrace the knowledge that each participant is unique and has a personal story of how they came to the start line. We make great efforts and care to ensure that every participant’s story has a happy ending.

We make registering easy, have affordable pricing, and provide athletes with everything they need to be successful on the course. Including ample water, nutrition, safety, scenic routes, gear, and great giveaways. We believe you should be rewarded for your training efforts! Although we can’t control the weather, we can offer the best possible race experience to help you achieve your goals and make your adventures memorable. So whether you finish dead last, or PR, (or maybe you do both) you can say, “This was a great day to run, (bike, or swim)!”

Final Stretch has produced races from kid runs, to full marathons, long course triathlons, and everything in between. We have duathlons, short course triathlons, half marathons, 5k’s, 10k’s, and fun themed races as well. Whatever your racing goals are we have something perfect for you.

Final Stretch, Inc. offers the following event management services:

• Race Consultation
• Race Production & Logistics
• Course Design & Set-up
• Post-race Presentation
• Online Registration
• Website Assistance
• Event Awards
• Volunteer Organization & Management
• Event Promotion
• Race Advertising
• Sponsorship
• Charities

If you are interested in renting equipment or having your race chip timed, please visit www.finaltiming.com to view a complete list of our timing services and available equipment.

A letter from the President of Final Stretch, Mark Bongers:

Everyone here at Final Stretch is dedicated to making sure our participants have the best race experience possible. We spend countless hours making sure that our events are safe and that each runner or multisport athlete is well taken care of before and after the race. Your feedback is a valuable and has allowed us build on our successes and to make improvements as we move forward. Our commitment is to QUALITY. We want to make sure you get to the start line ready for the event, that your event goes the way you want it to go, and that you have a great finish and post-race experience. I personally have and still do run many races as well as coach long distance runners in high school sports. I love running and truly have a passion for the sport! Many people say I live and breathe running, and come to think of it, I may be a little obsessive at times. But I am okay with that because it truly is my passion and I live it daily. The question I ask many people is, “What is your reason or your joy with running? Find that and you will go farther and enjoy running longer than you could ever imagine."

One of the aspects of Final Stretch that I am most proud of is that we try to keep our race costs effective and for our events to be run for good reasons. Yes, we are a for profit company, but we do many things to help the communities we are in. We have numerous high school sports teams help out at the races and we give money back to their programs (Over $15,000 each year). We have a great charity partner in MOCA (Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance) for the Unleash the SHE, with 10% to 15% of the runners fees going back to MOCA, an organization that is doing great things for women. We also try to limit the races and control the growth so we can make sure that the finish lines are manageable and there are post-race goodies for all the runners.

So in conclusion, thank you so much for being part of the Final Stretch family and we hope that we see you again at one of our events. It has been our pleasure to put on these events for you and we hope that your upcoming holiday season brings you LOTS of joy. Be safe, run strong, and find the passion in your life!

Gratefully yours,
Mark Bongers

Meet the Team