OC Marathon to host 10,000 participants

Deepa Bharath

If Fox Network’s “The OC” didn’t bring enough attention, the first OC

Marathon this weekend is poised to bring even more razzmatazz to this

coastal town.

Nearly 10,000 runners are expected to participate in the marathon

Sunday, with about 75,000 spectators expected to show up to watch the

event, spokeswoman Peggy Fort said.

The race has already exceeded organizers’ expectations, with 9,000

participants from nine countries, 38 states and 546 cities

registered, she said. The 26.2-mile course will start at Fashion

Island, wind past the Irvine Spectrum and finish up along the Back

Bay at the Newport Dunes resort. Other races include a half marathon,

a 5K kids marathon and a Mayors’ 5K Walk.

The weekend will also feature a runners exposition Friday and

Saturday at the Guthrie Alton Business Center at 2152 Alton Ave. in

Irvine. A post-race party will be held at the Newport Dunes

Waterfront Resort.

“It’s a great opportunity to showcase Newport Beach and Irvine and

Orange County as a whole,” Fort said.

The goal of the event is to raise money for 10 Southern California

children’s charities, she said.

The marathon has been two years in the works. In April 2002, the

Run for Orange County Kids committee formed to establish the

marathon. Committee members searched for two years for a main sponsor

and finally found a generous one in PacifiCare Health Systems, which

provided $250,000 and a commitment of another quarter of a million in

in-kind services. Hoag Hospital is also a major sponsor. Charting the

course for the race was a daunting task, said race coordinator Bill

Sumner, a track coach at Corona del Mar High School.

“The challenge was to come up with a course that’s community

friendly,” he said. “We had to make sure traffic is always moving.

Our goal was to make sure that if somebody didn’t want to be in the

marathon, and they wanted to get to a Starbucks, they’re able to do

that. Our traffic engineer calls it ‘the Starbucks rule.’”

Newport Beach residents will experience very little inconvenience

in terms of road closures as opposed to those driving in Irvine,

Newport Beach Police Sgt. Dale Johnson said. In Newport, Back Bay

Drive will be closed from 7 a.m. to noon, while MacArthur Boulevard

between San Joaquin Hills Road and Coast Highway, and the southbound

lanes of San Miguel will be shut down from 7 to 8 a.m.

“The southbound lanes of Bonita Canyon Road may be briefly

affected as the runners cross over to Irvine, but they’ll pass by

quickly,” Johnson said.

An event of such magnitude takes a tremendous amount of planning,

Sumner said.

“Right from the 222,000 cups we need to have and 6,000 bananas and

130 portable toilets, everything needs to be quantified and planned

out in advance,” he said.

But the work is worth it because it’s going to be a memorable

experience for the runners, Sumner said.

“We have the perfect location right here,” he said. “We’ve got

great weather, shopping, the beach. If you’re someone in New Jersey

or Chicago and it’s this time of the year, you either go to Hawaii or

Corona del Mar.”