The Bad to the Bone Duathlon has fascinated competitors since its inception in 2005. After-all who wouldn’t want a t-shirt with such a colorful title? Unfortunately few come to realize the area’s unique place in history or how their competition fees help support the promotion of that history.

     Known as the birthplace of American vertebrate paleontology, Big Bone Lick State Park once comprised an area where brackish water seeped up through the ground from an inland ocean that once covered this area millions of years ago. The marshy land prompted mastodons, mammoths, and giant sloths to make their way to this lick. Their fossilized remains and those of other Ice Age mammals were collected by a number of explorers and scientists from the early 1700s and distributed to museum collections around the world including Paris and London.

     Frontier history also connected with Big Bone Lick in 1755 when Mary Ingles made her 800 mile journey home from this area. Captured by the Shawnee from her home in Draper’s Meadow, Virginia, Mary was taken to BBL to help harvest the salt made from the brine contained in the salt springs. Mary was able to escape from her captors and eventually found her way back to her family.

     In addition to Mary’s journey, Big Bone also witnessed the historic journey of the Corps of Discovery led by Merriweather Lewis and William Clark. Prior to the Lewis and Clark expedition, President Thomas Jefferson requested that these two men stop at Big Bone and collect some of the fossilized remains in1803 and 1807. Earliest evidence of Ice Age humans in North America were also discovered by Clark here in 1807 and now reside in the Cincinnati Museum Center.

     To promote the history of this unique area, money collected from race fees enable the Friends of Big Bone, sponsors of the Bad-to-the-Bone Duathlon, to help make improvements in the park. Currently money is being used to upgrade the signage of the main trail. In the future, the group hopes to help improve the content and layout of the Visitor’s Center.

     When the finish line is crossed by the end of this event, athletes can be proud of completing a grueling race. They can also realize that they ran where mastodons, mammoths, and giant sloths once stood and where Mary Ingles began her journey home. Competition is good business.