We're working on the race start time

We've gotten a lot of questions about the start time of the race, and we’re
working with the City of LA to move the race start a little earlier. We
hope to have something worked out by the middle of January. Please
be patient and expect an announcement soon about the start time for
the 2009 LA Marathon.


Nick Curl
Race Director
LA Marathon

New Community Relations Director Hired

I’m happy to announce that we’ve hired Ginger Williams as our Community Relations Director. She’s a great addition to the team here at Marathon HQ, and she’ll help us build bridges to many different constituent groups. “It's a joy for me to be able to combine my marathon work experience and my love for Los Angeles. I'm looking forward to working with the many different charities and neighborhood groups and help build a great event,” says Ginger. She’ll keep us connected with all of our official charities as well as Students Run LA. Ginger will also attend countless outreach meetings and be our conduit to much of the community. She comes to us with a wealth of experience and has worked on high profile events and with celebrities such as Ervin Magic Johnson, Monday Night Football, NFL Properties and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. With a strong background in non-profit work, she's coordinated logistics for more than 20 marathons and 4000 runners with the AIDS Marathon Training program. Ginger has also trained and completed 10 marathons herself. We’re lucky to have someone of this caliber!

Peter

Emerald Nuts joins the fun!

How great is this? Emerald Nuts has signed on as an official sponsor of the LA Marathon. They'll be sponsoring the Final Five miles of the race, and runners will see their distinctive banner after they pass the 21 mile marker. The Final Five program educates runners across the country about the natural energy benefits of nuts. Emerald Nuts participates in several big running events across the country, and they'll have snacks available at various places on Marathon weekend here in LA.

For more info check out Emeraldnuts.com

Peter

LA Marathon Renews Partnership with Students Run LA

The marathon is excited to announce a renewed partnership with Students Run LA (http://www.srla.org/), a non-profit organization whose mission is to challenge at-risk secondary students to experience the benefits of goal-setting, character development, adult mentoring and improved health by providing them with the ability to train for and complete the Los Angeles Marathon. “We’re thrilled to partner again with the Los Angeles Marathon. Training for and running it is a life-changing experience for thousands of young people every year, and we couldn’t be happier to renew the relationship,” said Executive Director Michelle Fleenor. Fleenor tells us that more than 3,500 students, as part of the training regimen, ran the City of Angels half-marathon on Dec. 7th in Griffith Park. She expects nearly 4,000 students to run in the LA Marathon in 2009. Wow!

Peter Abraham
Creative Director
LA Marathon, LLC

LA Marathon Announces 2009 Race Route

The 2009 Los Angeles Marathon promises to be the start of a new era, both for race participants and the entire Los Angeles community. We’re building your race—and our organization that supports it—around the transformational power of sport, inspiring athletes and connecting communities. In that effort, we’re pleased to announce that Honda has announced its return as presenting sponsor of the marathon and Acura is back as the title sponsor for the bike tour. We’ve hired Nick Curl, a respected veteran of the racing world who spent more than a dozen years affiliated with the marathon, as our race director. And today we are announcing a return to a runner-friendly course, the old “loop” course that starts and finishes downtown.

In speaking to hundreds of runners in recent weeks, we’ve heard lots of comments about the race. All of those comments inform our decision-making process. One idea that we heard frequently – and which we can implement immediately – is to improve the race route. We are excited to announce that this year we will begin and end the race in Downtown Los Angeles. We’re using the same popular course that was used from 1996-2006. This route highlights a variety of great neighborhoods throughout the city, sending participants through the Crenshaw, Koreatown, Hancock Park, and the Mid-City neighborhoods along the way. It also produced the fastest LA Marathon time to date—a 2:08:40 by Benson Cherono in 2006.

Click here to see a map of the route.

Click here for turn-by-turn directions.

Click here to register for the LA Marathon or Acura LA Bike Tour.

Stay tuned and keep running!

Russ Pillar

Welcome to our News Page

We’ve launched this page in an effort to keep race enthusiasts up-to-date on events and developments leading up to the 2009 Los Angeles Marathon. We’re expecting an outstanding race and look forward to the participation of thousands of runners, volunteers, sponsors, and spectators. We expect to keep this site updated with news about the race, training notes, announcements, special offers, and much more, so bookmark it and please come back often.

Keep training!

Russ Pillar
President, LA Marathon LLC