The 42nd annual Long Beach Marathon was held Sunday, with a record number of participants and a slightly altered course due to a forecast of elevated tides and hazardous oceanfront conditions.<\/p>\n
The course was rerouted approximately a mile-and-a-half away from the beachfront path just before mile 8. The sixth through 10th miles were planned to be run a few feet from the Pacific Ocean. However, organizers announced Saturday that runners would exit the beachfront path just before mile 8 and rejoin the official course at approximately mile 9.<\/p>\n
Lake Forest\u2019s Xavier Smith, 26, won the men\u2019s race in a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes and 56 seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty confident I was going to win,\u201d said Smith, who was competing in his first Long Beach Marathon. \u201cThe ocean breeze and the crowds are amazing, pretty good course and good weather, I liked the drizzle.\u201d<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s race was won by Cincinnati\u2019s Jules Madzia, 31, in a time of 2 hours, 47 minutes and 34 seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved it, it\u2019s such a cool course, it was so much fun,\u201d Madzia said, according to the Southern California News Group. \u201cI loved coming the last two miles here and seeing all the spectators and feeling all the energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 26-mile, 385-yard course started on Shoreline Drive at Shoreline Village Drive. Runners then passed through The Pike at Rainbow Harbor retail and entertainment center, ran on an on-ramp to the Long Beach (710) Freeway, and crossed the Queensway Bridge to the bow of the Queen Mary.<\/p>\n
The field looped around the Lighthouse at Rainbow Harbor, to Pierpoint Landing, then back through the start\/finish area. The course then went through the Belmont Shore neighborhood, passed Marine Stadium, around Colorado Lagoon and passed the Long Beach Recreation Golf Course.<\/p>\n
The 16th through 20th miles were a 5-kilometer loop through Cal State Long Beach. The field then ran on Ocean Boulevard to the finish line on Shoreline Drive.<\/p>\n
The course change was made after the National Weather Service issued a coastal flood warning until 3 p.m. Sunday. The public was urged to stay off beaches, coastal walkways and vulnerable roads and structures.<\/p>\n
The marathon started at 5:30 a.m. for the third consecutive year. The start time for the 2024 marathon was moved a half-hour earlier due to a rare October heat wave. Race officials opted to keep the earlier start for the 2025 race to ensure runner safety, publicist Dan Cruz told City News Service.<\/p>\n
The marathon drew a record field of 7,500, breaking the previous record of 6,500 set last year, Cruz said. Its field included Kenny Williams, the only runner to have finished all 41 previous Long Beach Marathons.<\/p>\n
A 13.1-mile half-marathon was won by Salvador Capetillo, 28, of Flagstaff, Arizona, with a time of 1 hour, 3 minutes and 51 seconds, and Bailey Hertenstein, 26, of Boulder, Colorado, for the women with a time of 1 hour, 12 minutes and 14 seconds.<\/p>\n
That course also began at Shoreline Drive at Shoreline Village Drive. It drew 16,500 entrants, topping the previous record of 14,000 set last year, Cruz said.<\/p>\n
A finish line festival was held from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Marina Green, at Shoreline Drive and Linden Avenue with a beer garden, team village, food trucks and photo opportunities.<\/p>\n
The Long Beach Marathon was first held in 1982. The race was disbanded in 1996 because of financial problems, then revived in 1999 under new management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 42nd annual Long Beach Marathon was held Sunday, with a record number of participants and a slightly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[191814,174,681,11524,6946,131,133,132,10259],"class_list":["post-493315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-adjusted","tag-beach","tag-coastal","tag-conditions","tag-course","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-marathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}