The 36th annual Run Thru History took place Saturday, at the historic Vicksburg National Military Park, attracting a wide variety of participants.

Ninety-year-old Bob Cunny competed in the five-kilometer walk.

“I’m only 90,” he said. “I kept moving along. I tried to take long steps, long steps.”

Cunny said he has not been participating in the race for very long.

“Maybe five or 10 years ago my daughter from Texas read in the newspaper that there was going to be a race, and she told me she was going to come and run the race,” he said. “She said I was going to run with her. Well, walk with her, I don’t run.”

Cunny said that is when he started and he’s been enjoying it ever since.

“It was a good race,” he said. “The weather was good — cold, but good.”

Two-year-old Douglas Upchurch competed in the one-mile fun run for the kids, and he said he was tired after he finished but he had been practicing.

Keith Upchurch, Douglas’ father, said he did a lot of practicing in his yard with a neighborhood friend.

“He wouldn’t let me run with him. He would sit down if I tried to run with him, so I had to stay behind him,” he said. “He was getting after it.”

In Douglas’ hurry to finish the run, he accidently circumvented the finish line.

“He ran down here and sat down and had to come back and cross the finish line,” Keith Upchurch said.

Timmy Farish from Louisville said he has been participating in the race for about 10 years and he dressed up as a Confederate soldier.

“I ran with the two flags, an American flag and a Confederate flag,” he said.

Farish also painted his body with Robert E. Lee on one leg and Ulysses S. Grant on the other leg.

“I enjoy getting in the spirit for it,” he said. “It’s a historic race too.”

Farish said he participates in other races as well and he always tries to dress up for the theme.

“My favorite part of this race is going through the battlefield and the big hills,” Farish said.

YMCA Director of Camping and Childcare Mille Wolfe said the event is a fundraiser for the Vicksburg YMCA.

Wolfe said the staff had been busy preparing for the event, preregistering people, assigning names to numbers, making number tags and prebagging shirts.

“This is the 36th race though, and I just think it’s amazing that people always show up to race,” she said. “People come out and brave the weather to run a course that is challenging every year.”

Wolfe said she’s been involved with Run Thru History for as long as she can remember and she has been working the race since the YMCA took it over about five years ago.

“The Vicksburg National Military Park is the only National Military Park that allows a race to take place on its property,” she said.

In addition to the 10k run and 5k walk there was a one-mile fun run, food prepared by the Y’s Men Club and entertainment by The Chill, a local band.