There's just one thing wrong with the Long Beach International City Bank Marathon: It's not long enough.
OK, maybe the runners would disagree with that perspective.
The standard distance of 26.2 miles is way too long for most people but just right for hearty athletes into this kind of foot-pounding challenge.
So perhaps its more accurate to say that Long Beach is just too big -- too full of scenic, historical, novel, important and poignant places to fully accommodate a mere 26.2 mile jaunt. And that's saying something considering all of the places the runners passed Sunday during the 2011 event.
If you haven't taken a run or peddled a bike along the course, here's an idea of what you were missing. On a bicycle thankfully powered by a friend who was in shape, here's what one saw from the front of the thundering herd of 20,000 or so runners.
Two lagoons, one sports arena, an Olympic pool, a memorial pier, and a Marine Stadium.
Oodles of parks, including Santa Cruz, Palm Beach, Shore Aquatic, Marina Green, Bayshore, Livingston, Will Rogers, Marina Vista, Bouton Creek, Bixby and Valparaiso Plaza.
The Queensway Bridge. Every town should have one, don't you think?
Nice vistas along the way of the Golden Shore Marine Biological Preserve, Shoreline Village, that landlocked lubber known as The Queen Mary, both sides of Naples, and Marina Pacifica and Spinnaker Bay.
Two passes of The Aquarium of the Pacific, our expensive but worthy landmark.
Four miles of
running along a beach path, close enough to sun bathers, volleyball players, windsurfers, and various ships at sea to slow down and take a deep breath of admiration. More than half of the entire race is conducted within site of the ocean or various waterways.Re-carbo at Chuck's
If feeling hungry, there's a chance to stop in at breakfast of champions Chuck's on Ocean Boulevard and re-carbo load, or, feeling jovial and not on a tight itinerary, an opportunity to catch a breath, visit Ripples and sing some karaoke, maybe Springsteen's "Born to Run."
There's a run up Park Avenue and the city's sports legacies -- Recreation Park, where people picnic; Blair Field, where Dirtbags and Bruins and Jackrabbits play; the tennis center, named for the icon Billie Jean King; Joe Rodgers Softball Stadium; and a place to go lawn bowling once you've decided you no longer like marathons.
A right turn on Anaheim gets you along the north edge of the 18-hole Rec Park golf course and lets you pass the Long Beach Playhouse and note that "To Kill A Mockingbird" is on the marquee.
There's a three-mile section that runs through Long Beach State, our learned university, pass the pointy Pyramid, along the lovely and much overlooked gracefulness and gentle hills of the campus grounds, accompanied by musical groups, cheerleaders, pods of loyal and enthusiastic members of the Greek Community, and the occasional student who still can't find the car he parked on Thursday.
Eventually, one gets back down to Ocean Boulevard and flies past Bixby Park and Valparaiso Plaza Park and in the shadow of some of the city's towers and to the finish line on Shoreline, the same place where drivers in the Long Beach Grand Prix take a checkered flag once a year.
Sure beats the L.A. Marathon, at least those years it chose to run along an empty freeway in dreadful heat, and undoubtedly New York in terms of cleanliness, and perhaps Boston in that there's no Heartbreak Hill to squeeze your lungs like an elephant has taken residence on your chest.
Power to the people
The Long Beach Marathon has re-emerged in the half-decade into the people's marathon, one that doesn't bother filling the front of the field with various world class runners vying for records and prize money. The operators give the people what they want -- an event that reflects the community and offers something for everyone, be it short jogs for kids, the full monty Marathon, a half-marathon, a bike run and wheelchair competitions -- where, if you bothered to check, you would find some world-rated competitors after all.
What I would like the operators to explore is adding some other points of Long Beach to the course, because this is one large city and there are a lot of places that would add to the touch-it-all possibilities.
The six miles of running in the Shoreline area makes sense but it could be trimmed to maybe four miles since there's some duplication. Maybe instead of turning around on the Peninsula at Bayshore Park, run it all the way down to the tip of Alamitos Bay.
Rather than using Livingston as the east-west thoroughfare toward Recreation Park, run down Second Street, from its western tip, through Naples to Appian Way. It's an iconic street in the city; use it.
Yeah, some business people will spit and holler, but it's one Sunday a year, and you could always make it a separate leg of the race for the front-runners -- the bikes, wheelchairs, and runners who, with a 7 a.m. start, can be done with the leg by 10 a.m. tops, and keep the Livingstone option for the fun-runners.
It would cool to see the runners take a left turn on PCH as they hit Clark Avenue and then do a loop around Traffic Circle. Not practical, but it would be cool.
There's also a lonely stretch on the east side of Long Beach State that could be corrected by directing the course through Bixby Hills. Yes, it's a gated community and the people who live their like their privacy. But in the middle of Bixby Hills is Rancho Los Alamitos, a treasure of a landmark that would be a terrific vista to add to the race.
There's also five miles of the course that repeats itself (along Park, Anaheim, Clark and Atherton). It would be novel if the operators could figure out a way to remove those five miles and find a way to turn part of the course down 4 th Street, also known as Retro Row, a funky party of town that would probably turn out more spectators than most places.
The race is fine as it is, but it says something about the city to know it could offer even more.
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