JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Every year, thousands of runners take on the 9.3-mile Gate River Run. Each one has a reason to run.
For Skye McCarley, it’s tradition.
“It’s always on the calendar for us,” McCarley said.
A Jacksonville native and Terry Parker High School graduate, McCarley ran her first Gate River Run in 2017. It was her first race since competing in cross country for the Braves. Encouraged by coworkers, she signed up.
“I remember still to this day the nerves that I had just going into this big road race that looked vastly different than a high school cross country meet,” McCarley said.
She’s been back every year. What started as a single race has grown into a family reunion, with more friends and relatives joining her at the starting line.
“It’s really just an ever-growing kind of family and crew that I like to have,” McCarley said. If someone says, ‘hey I want to start running. What’s a good race to go to?’ I’m like ‘you got to run the Gate River Run’.”
But the race has marked more than miles.
“It coexists with a lot of things that have happened in my life,” McCarley said.
In 2022, just steps from the finish line and surrounded by thousands of spectators, her now-husband Justin proposed.
“I will never forget it because it was probably the most Skye way of a proposal,” McCarley said.
“This person is so perfect to think of the two things that mean the most to me: running and having that little fiancé status was something I was so excited for.”
Then in 2025, one month after learning she was pregnant, McCarley ran the race 12 weeks along with her daughter, Leila.
“I’ll never forget that feeling of knowing like I did something so incredible running with my little beanie baby in my belly,” McCarley said. ”Then of course finishing that, there was so many emotions. I just remember crying thinking I spent so many monumental times here at this finish line and now this is like the next chapter of my life.”
This year brings another milestone. Five months postpartum, McCarley is running her first race as a mom - with her daughter along with her family waiting at the finish line.
“It used to just be that I ran for myself and just to get that piece of metal and see how fast I can go,” McCarley said. ”Now it’s just seeing the excitement build not only with my husband for being so proud but then seeing my daughter there. She’s only just 5 months old but to see her expression and knowing that mom is so strong.”
She hopes one day Leila will lace up beside her.
Each time McCarley crosses the finish line, she says she adds another title to her name.
“It’s not just Skye,” McCarley said. “It’s mom, wife, coach, friend, sister. I’m interested to see what the next few years hold.”
All from signing up to run a 15K in her hometown.