Gene Brtalik and this blogger got together again and for the second time in a year to talk about the Oakland Marathon and Running Festival 2011 to be held March 26th and 27th 2011. We met for lunch on a beautiful Friday on the dock at The Lake Chalet; a perfect lake shore backdrop to talk about the running race that will pass by it on March 27th.
Gene's the Director of The Oakland Marathon, and has settled in to being a Bay Area resident and head of a successful event that promotes the city. He moved here two years ago, noticed that Oakland didn't have a race, and talked to the head of Corrigan Sports Enterprises back east in Maryland about starting one in Oakland. The result was the 2010 Oakland Marathon that drew 6,300 runners. A good 20 percent of them from outside the Bay Area.
The race course they run, as Gene points out on the video, takes in much of central Oakland, from Jack London Square, to Lake Merritt, then the Oakland Hills, and finally downtown Oakland; 26.2 miles for the full run, 13.1 for the half marathon. And all along the course, music groups played, and will be there again.
Changes For 2011
Gene says that many of the Oakland Marathon's changes for 2011 center around making the course more "driver friendly." For example, last year they went down Fruitvale; this year they're going down Coolidge. And this time the course avoids Bellevue for those who want to go to Children's Fairyland.
The Runners Expo is bigger this year, and the 5K this year is at Jack London Square, where as it was at Lake Merritt in 2010.
Registration At 7,000 Runners
Already there are more runners registered this year than last year: 7,000 as of the writing of this blog post. You can still register at the website here: www.oaklandmarathon.com
Oakland Marathon: The Best Of Oakland
Gene reports that a post- 2010-race survey revealed that 90 percent of people surveyed said that they left with a positive image of Oakland. One person saw Lake Merritt and loved it so much, he bought a house there. That's the best news of all because, as Gene says "Oakland's not as bad as members of the media have made it to be."
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