New Course for Los Angeles Marathon

Los Angeles - Los Angeles Marathon organizers unveiled a course filled with firsts for the March 21 race, including starting at Dodger Stadium, ending near the Santa Monica Pier and going outside the city limits.

The race will begin with 1 1/4 loops around Dodger Stadium. Other initial landmarks on the 26-mile, 385-yard course include El Pueblo de Los Angeles, the city's birthplace, Los Angeles City Hall and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

The course will then head west through Echo Park and Silver Lake into Hollywood, passing the Kodak Theater, home of the Academy Awards, and Grauman's Chinese Theater. The field will then head south onto Sunset Boulevard, entering West Hollywood, and then Beverly Hills, including running on the famed shopping street, Rodeo Drive.

The latter portions of what organizers have dubbed the "Stadium to the Sea" course include Century City, the Veterans Administration grounds and Brentwood's San Vicente Boulevard, concluding on Santa Monica Boulevard, near the Santa Monica Pier.

Agreements were reached with Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Santa Monica to have the race go through those cities for the first time. The Los Angeles Marathon, run annually since 1986, had previously been held within Los Angeles' city limits.

Organizers announced the outline of the course in July.

The new course, which organizers bill as having a "landmark every mile," is part of an effort by its new owners, a group controlled by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, to reverse the declining interest in the race.

The number of finishers declined from a record 20,169 in 2006 to 16,941 in 2008 to 14,061 in this year's race, which was run on Memorial Day, after having been held in March since its inception. The number of entrants was not available.

Registration for the race is more than 75 percent ahead of the 2007 pace, when a record of more than 24,000 entered, Marathon President Russ Pillar said. Organizers plan to limit entries to 25,000.

"We are thrilled to see such a great response to the Stadium to the Sea Course," Pillar said. "We designed this iconic course with runners in mind and we expect it will quickly make the Los Angeles Marathon a `must run' among the world's major marathons."

The course trends downhill, with the elevation at the finish about 400 feet lower than the start. It is expected to be among the fastest courses in the race's history, Pillar said.

Pillar said earlier this year that when he met with McCourt last year to discuss financing the purchase of the race, both saw the marathon"as a fallen civic asset that really ought to be rebuilt."

Last year's race was run on a loop course starting at Figueroa and Fifth streets in downtown Los Angeles, ending nearby in front of the Richard J. Riordan Central Library at Flower and Fifth streets.

The previous two years the race started next to Universal Studios, with a course designed along the Metro Red Line, and ended in front of the library.

The City Council agreed in July to move the marathon back to a Sunday in March, siding with runners who said holding the race on Memorial Day meant hotter and potentiallyäangerous temperatures. The council also called for a redesign of the course to minimize disruption of Sunday church services.

Ministers with churches on or near the course had said for years the necessary street closings resulted in church attendance typically dropping by about 50 percent on the day of the race.