The 40th annual Long Beach Marathon was scheduled to kick up its heels at 5:30 a.m. this morning — 30 minutes earlier than originally scheduled — 22,000 runners pouring into the city’s roadways.
Thousands of runners arrived in the pre-dawn hours Sunday, stretching and chatting before the the milestone race and its related events. It cool before the sun rose, but it was expected to get hotter soon.
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Because of a heat wave predicted for the weekend, race organizers last week moved up the times of various events. The wheelchair marathon and half-marathon were scheduled for 5:25 a.m. Sunday. The marathon and bike marathon were scheduled to begin five minutes later, while the half-marathon would begin at 6:30 a.m.
The start was delayed a bit so officials could clear the course.
The first Long Beach Marathon was held in 1982, the brainchild of local YMCA members who wanted to bring a marathon to their own city amidst the running boom in the late 1970s, according to a press release.
“Long Beach is a great city, and running is part of it,” former race director Joe Carlson said in a statement. “There’s a rich history here.”
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Carlson has lived all 73 years of his life in Long Beach and was the Long Beach Marathon race director for nine years from 1984 through 1992. About 1,600 runners participated in the first race, Carlson said.
In the event’s history, there was about a three-year gap in the mid 1990s when the marathon was not held. According to Carlson, about a dozen men ran the 26.2-miles each year during the gap to keep their local marathon streak alive.
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The race also is a significant fundraising platform for dozens of charities and nonprofit organizations, including Team Challenge in 2024, which has raised more than $150,000 for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation.
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