Yesterday was the LA Marathon 2010 Wrap Meeting held at the Public Counsel. Ginger Williams, Director of Community Relations and Nick Curl, Race Director, with the help of Marti Baer, dedicated Charity Program supporter and coordinator of the Charity Expo Shared Booth, lead the meeting providing results from 2010 and exciting details for 2011. Here is a recap of some of that information.

2010 Charity Program Success

Sunday March 21st, 2010, a total of 2985 runners ran on behalf of an Official Charity (1308 marathon, 1677 5K) raising a collective total of $1,949,079. Of the over 60 Charities in the program, Real Medicine is proud to be among the 15 charities with a team over 25 (we had 35 runners last year).

2011 Event Dates

  • Expo — Friday, March 18th and Saturday, March 19th 2011

  • 5K — Saturday, March 19th 2011

  • Marathon — Sunday, March 20th 2011

  • Registration Opens — July 15th (more detail will be announced June 15)

2011 Changes Based on Issues from 2010

  • Thankfully, the problems faced race week and especially race day have been taken into consideration and many exciting changes are on the horizon to make things easier for runners, volunteers, and staff. though Here are some of those:

  • The Expo layout will be fixed to deter excess crowding and there will be water and food provided on premises.

  • Traffic direction into and drop off at the Stadium race day will also be updated as last years start was delayed a total of 25 mins–shuttles were late and many people parked where ever they could (some on the side of the freeway!) and walked miles to the Stadium.

  • Shuttles must be reserved when runners register (last year, runners had as long as it took for them to fill)

  • The finish time will be cut at 8hours (18:45 min mile pace) so that streets can be reopened sooner.

  • There will also be some minor course changes: the loop around the Stadium will be cut out and the finish might be somewhere around Main st. (more details on that to come.)

2011 Charity Program Updates

There are some exciting new changes to the Charity Program as well. This year the minimum of pledged runners has doubled from 25 to 50, and will no longer reflect both marathon runners and 5K runners — so, 50 marathon runners and 50 5K. The Marathon will also feature more information on the Official Charities in the Program with homepage highlights and more options in the registration section. They are even talking about implementing something through Active.com that will allow runners to not only choose their charity during registration but to create a fundraising page immediately. This system will also allow browsers to make donations through the site without having to set up a page.

Clearly, the LA Marathon Charity program is taking strides to fulfill the generous goal set by its owner, Frank McCourt, when he recently announced that he had "set as an eventual goal that every runner would compete on behalf of a charity."

Let’s all help to make this happen!

Though registration opens July 15th, we are compiling a list of runners for Real Medicine who promise to register with us on opening day.

To be added, please contact allison@realmedicinefoundation.org

Join the team and Create a Fundraising page

RMF LA Marathon 2011 Event page

Read more about the RMF 2010 team and cheer station

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

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