Team Beef members promote beef at the 2015 Boston Marathon

PIERRE – The South Dakota Beef Industry Council (SDBIC), in partnership with the Northeast Beef Promotion Initiative (NEBPI) promoted beef and supported 21 Team Beef members who competed at the 119th Boston Marathon on April 20 next to 30,000 other elite athletes.

“This was the largest contingent of Team Beef members we’ve had to date participate in the Boston Marathon,” said Christie Brown, NEBPI director of promotions. “Our 21 Team Beef runners hailed from New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Colorado and Texas. The 2015 Boston Marathon was the 100th marathon for Team Beef member Joanne Harms, from Texas. We also had a mother and daughter pair from Missouri, Connie and Elizabeth Wilkinson, participate in the race together. Our fastest Team Beef member was Wade Foster from Washington D.C. who completed the race in 2:44:25.”

In addition to supporting the runners at the event, NEBPI also offered virtual support of the runners leading up to, during and after the marathon, said Brown. Educating the runners on how beef can play a role in their training was an important part of the resources the Team Beef members were provided.

“Endurance athletes, such as marathon runners, are a very receptive audience to nutritional information,” said Brown. “They are very critical of what they put into their bodies and how it will effect performance. Protein is a highly sought after nutrient, and the opportunity for the beef checkoff to reach this particular audience with the positive nutritional messaging of beef is huge. Beef is the number-one food source of protein with just a 3-ounce serving providing 50% of your recommended Daily Value of protein. When it comes to post-race or marathon training fuel, it’s hard to pass up 25 grams of high quality protein in under 160 calories.”

Not only did the Team Beef members receive a lot of support and “Go Beef” cheers from the crowd as they ran the 26.2 miles in Boston, but they also received a great deal of positive feedback through social media. Using the hashtag #BeefFuelsBoston, nearly 80,000 Twitter impressions were achieved.

For more information on projects of the beef checkoff, check out www.sdbeef.org or nebpi.org.