History of the Marathon in San Luis Obispo

When the 2012 SLO Marathon + Half debuted on April 22, it had been exactly 26 years since the last marathon in San Luis Obispo history. Always the perfect place for a long run, the marathon event in San Luis Obispo had been only a memory since 1986. 
 
Twenty-six is a propitious number, being the number of miles run in a marathon. It is traditionally thought to have been the distance covered by Phidippides, an ancient Greek courier, who ran from Marathon to Athens with the victorious tidings of a Persian defeat. Phidippides delivered the message with his last breath, then promptly expired, so the story goes.
 
In light of Phidippides’ legendary death-from-running, early naysayers can be excused for their belief that a human being could not safely run 26 miles. Nevertheless, the first modern marathon was run in the Athens Olympics in 1896. American attention in the sport didn’t really ignite until Frank Shorter won the Olympic marathon at the 1972 Munich Summer games. Shorter’s victory lit a towering flame of running passion in the United States, beginning in the seventies. 
 
What Shorter did for national interest in distance running, San Luis High School coach Brian Waterbury did for running on the Central Coast. Waterbury launched the first-ever San Luis marathon in 1973.  Runners were more sparsely accessorized at that time: no Garmins, Dri-Fit or GU. Nike had just introduced the first shoe designed specifically for runners. In the original SLO marathon, there were 41 entrants, 27 of whom finished the race. 
 
Waterbury had an intense love for running and believed, as many have since, that the Central Coast was the perfect place to run. In his zeal, Waterbury and best friend Stan Rosenfield organized races of varying distances year-round, in addition to the marathon.
 
Coach Roger Warnes, director of the SLO Roadrunners, recalls that Waterbury influenced hundreds of local runners, both adults and students. Warnes believes that Waterbury organized and staged the first SLO marathon in 1973 from a purely unselfish desire to infuse others with his own love of running.
 
The first SLO marathon was a simple out-and-back course from Laguna Lake Park to Los Osos and back.  Sue Waterbury says her husband designed the course to avoid crossing traffic intersections so that formal permitting would not be required.  Waterbury made a few casual calls ahead of time to notify authorities that a race would be taking place, but there were no closed traffic lanes or crossing guards.  Mrs. Waterbury remembers her husband driving the course the night before, his truck filled with bags of flour, which he used to make white arrows to mark turns. 
 
Waterbury was pleased with the outcome of the race, but the following year, took full-time teaching responsibility at the high school and lost most of the free time he needed to organize races.  No one picked up the race at that point, and the marathon went dormant in the county for the next five years.
 
In 1978, Pete Dorn took up the baton. He and his wife Jeanne attended est Training and had been inspired by Werner Erhard to join his campaign to end world hunger. An avid runner, Dorn saw a way to make running altruistic, and he organized the first Hunger Project marathon on July 16, 1978 as a fundraiser. The course began near Avila, proceeded through See Canyon to San Luis Middle School and back to the finish in Avila. 

The Hunger Project marathon was run only twice with a total of 16 finishers, but it evolved into the 8-mile Hunger Run staged every Thanksgiving morning to benefit local emergency food banks. Until his death in 2010, Pete Dorn was hard at work every year in his truck, transporting (literally) tons of canned goods donated by runners as part of their registration fee. 
 
In 1979, the Red Cross entered the field with what turned out to be the longest-lasting marathon, running for eight consecutive years.  Jim Hurley of Los Osos directed the first few races while he was a college student at Cal Poly.  Still a runner 33 years later, Hurley says he can’t even fathom the amount of work that a modern-day marathon would require.  In 1979, he says, it was a matter of printing waivers, pouring Gatorade and giving the police a heads-up.  The Red Cross marathon doubled as a training exercise for medical and communications personnel, as well as a benefit for the organization. 
 
The second year of the Red Cross marathon, some vacationers from Colorado happened to be in town during race week and showed up at the start on a whim. One of them set a scorching course record of 2:18, which would be hard to beat on the hillier present-day course, according to Samantha Pruitt, the 2012 race director. The Red Cross course began at Meadow Park and proceeded along Broad Street, Buckley and San Luis Bay Drive to the turnaround point at Port San Luis. 
 
After eight years, the Red Cross marathon passed into local history, too. Hurley said that the race directorship passed from hand to hand until no one remained who was willing to take up the job. In the meantime, according to Stan Rosenfield, co-founder of the San Luis Distance Club, small marathons had become cost-ineffective as the larger cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco began staging the mega-marathons. 
 
Since the final running of the Red Cross marathon in 1986, the character of marathons has changed dramatically. The days of flour-marking the course are long gone. Now we enjoy electronic chip-timing, professionally engineered and certified race courses, technical-fabric shirts, police-monitored traffic direction and a big festival at the finish. The responsibilities of race directors have multiplied so greatly that a marathon cannot be undertaken as a sideline anymore. Race directors go to school to learn their trade and put in more-than-full-time hours for a good part of the year leading up to a race. 
 
Small wonder that the marathon wasn’t picked up again for 26 years. Many SLO runners have had the idea for one, the desire for one, the conviction that San Luis was the perfect spot for one, but it took the locomotive power of Get Off the Couch Potato Sports Productions to drive the idea forward. Event directors Heather Hellman and Samantha Pruitt, with combined training in marketing, sales, athletics and coaching, envisioned the ultimate destination marathon taking place here in the “happiest place in America.” Like the pioneering Waterbury, they have a great love for the strenuous life and a desire to see others enjoying the sport of distance running, especially in such a run-friendly place as San Luis.
 
In the last 26 years, American marathons have evolved into more than just athletic events; they have become a dramatic stage, a backdrop for personal epics. People run marathons to celebrate milestone birthdays, recovery from grave illness, radical weight loss, charitable causes and in memory of family members or friends. Every runner in a marathon has a story, some worthy of screenplays.
 
Marathons can become spotlights for entire communities. The New York City Marathon is a celebration of its diverse composition, as it meanders through countless ethnic neighborhoods and all five boroughs. The 1993 Los Angeles Marathon race was scheduled at a time when race riots were in full flame.  Pressure was put on the race director to divert the race course, but he steadfastly refused. The marathon was run as planned, and turned into a huge block party as it united devastated neighborhoods and became a celebration of hope. The famous Boston Marathon occurs on Patriot’s Day when the midnight ride of Paul Revere is remembered and half a million spectators show up for the “26-mile long party.” A marathon can show off to the world the best and brightest a city has to offer, precisely the state of affairs that was envisioned for the 2012 SLO Marathon by race directors Pruitt and Heather Hellman.  
 
The inaugural SLO Marathon + Half took place on Earth Day, 2012 and a huge effort appropriately went in to make the race “green.” The marathon was certified by Athletes for a Fit Planet in its materials use and sustainable practices. Hanging next to its “green” credentials were certifications from USA Track and Field and the Boston Athletic Association, which named the new SLO Marathon one of the top ten best marathons in the country in which to qualify for a coveted berth in the Boston Marathon. 
 
Like the Hunger Project and Red Cross marathons of the past, the 2012 SLO Marathon + Half benefitted the community through the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and Special Olympics of San Luis Obispo County. In addition, the economic impact of the marathon weekend was independently estimated to have been $3 million additional revenue brought into the community. Six hundred volunteers contributed to the smooth running of the marathon, supplemented by spontaneous outpourings of support from neighbors and casually-formed cheer squads on the streets along the course.
 
The male and female winners of the 2012 SLO Marathon were both Central Coast locals, making it a truly hometown race in its inaugural year. Directors Pruitt and Hellman could not have been more pleased with the event. Runners raved afterwards about a truly runner-focused event, which was precisely what was expected by the directors who projected, check-listed and reviewed their highly-detailed race and Expo plans over and over in advance of the race.
 
The 2012 marathon and half-marathon sold out with 2,800 athletes. Registration for next year’s race opens on July 21, 2012 on active.com. Race directors anticipate another sellout, although participant caps have been increased to 2000 for the full marathon and 6000 for the half.
 
In its first year, the SLO Marathon + Half appropriately honored Brian Waterbury (1948-2003) and Pete Dorn (1944-2010) as the first inductees into the SLO Marathon Hall of Fame. Their early efforts to plant distance running on the central coast and to encourage multiple generations of locals to fall in love with the sport, have helped make San Luis Obispo a truly perfect place to run a marathon. 
 
Sheryl Collmer, a certifiable Marathon Maniac (#2722) writes and runs in San Luis Obispo.  She was privileged to be on the staff of the SLO Marathon for its inaugural year.