L.A. Marathon’s stadium-to-the-sea course offers new sights, and maybe faster times

It starts in the Dodger Stadium parking lot, heads downtown and then winds through West Hollywood and Beverly Hills before finishing as the Los Angeles Marathon of Santa Monica.

For the first time in its 25-year history, the L.A. Marathon isn’t an entirely L.A. story, running outside the confines of the city limits on a stadium-to-the-sea course.

Race organizers hope that a new route that will take runners past landmarks such as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Sunset Strip and Rodeo Drive on Sunday morning can transform what has been widely considered a second-tier event into something rivaling the New York and Boston marathons.

“Hopefully, I’ll get to see some Hollywood people, some TV stars,” Wesley Korir, the defending men’s champion, said Friday with a smile. “I hope they come out of their houses and say ‘hi’ to us.”

The changes, spearheaded by L.A. Marathon and Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, have drawn a sold-out field of more than 25,000 runners. Among the elite competitors is Kenyan Richard Limo, whose time of 2 hours 6 minutes 45 seconds in the 2007 Amsterdam Marathon makes him the fastest participant in the event’s history. Eleven runners have finished marathons in under 2:11.

There is no way of telling if what might be the marathon’s biggest and fastest field will be its cleanest, however. Race President Russ Pillar said organizers decided not to conduct drug testing this year because their attention was focused elsewhere, though they intend to test in the future if the race grows in stature.

Elite marathons typically test their participants for drug use. Korir, who set the L.A. Marathon record last year with a time of 2:08:24, said he “didn’t know why they wouldn’t do it here. … I’m just hoping the field is clean and everyone is honest.”

Nevertheless, the top runners said they were excited about a course that starts at an elevation of 505 feet above sea level and ends two blocks north of the Santa Monica Pier, where the elevation is 75 feet. The first six miles are considered the toughest, with several hilly sections, before the course gradually moves downhill around the halfway point at North Sweetzer Avenue in West Hollywood.

“Most races, you get the hardest part at the end when you are tired. This is the opposite,” Limo said. “It will help some of the runners achieve a good time.”

Runners should also enjoy progressively cooler temperatures as the course stretches from downtown Los Angeles to West Hollywood along Sunset Boulevard, enters Beverly Hills at Doheny Drive and Burton Way, and then winds into West Los Angeles and finally Santa Monica. There will be a finish line party on the beach next to the Santa Monica Pier, which could lead to a new post-race tradition of diving into the ocean.

The men’s and women’s winners will each receive $20,000 plus a 2010 Honda Insight EX sedan provided by the Japanese automaker, which is the marathon’s new title sponsor. The first man or woman to cross the finish line will earn a $100,000 bonus; the women’s field is given a head start of 18 minutes 47 seconds.

Race director Nick Curl called the coordination effort required to stage the race “monumental,” considering it involved four municipalities — Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica — plus the federal government, which owns the Veterans Affairs Healthcare Center grounds that are part of the race route.

“I’ve had more than one elected official tell me that he hasn’t seen the Greater Los Angeles region cooperate on something like this on anything since the 1984 Olympics,” Pillar said.

Race organizers say they reached out to church officials along the course route to head off complaints about access blockage that had been rampant in years past. Several churches are staging water stations and the Rev. Francis Mendoza of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels will bless runners’ shoes Saturday morning.

Korir is honeymooning in Los Angeles after marrying his college sweetheart last week. But the Kenyan runner, a resident of Louisville, Ky., said little else has changed since winning his first marathon here last year.

“Life has been the same except I did change my phone number,” he said.

Korir acknowledged that in a way it’s hard to consider him the defending champion of a race that has changed so dramatically from last year’s route, which started and ended near the same point downtown.

“It feels like everything is new again,” he said. “If someone runs 2:07, 2:06 here, definitely it will compete with some of the best marathons in the world.”

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