If Marathon Sponsors Go Halfway, So Will a Race : 13.1-Mile Run Planned for Ventura Boulevard

When a lack of sponsors forced cancellation last year of the inaugural San Fernando Valley Marathon, race director Bill Lovelace vowed to continue his quest to stage the first 26.2-mile race run completely in the Valley.

“I’m going to put this race on even if it kills me,” he said. “It’s going to happen.”

Well, come January, he may at least be half right.

Basin Blues, an Encino-based running club of which Lovelace is president, has temporarily scrapped its plans for a marathon in favor of a half-marathon.

The club has tentatively penciled in Jan. 11 for the 13.1-mile race, which will be run down the two northernmost lanes of Ventura Boulevard, beginning at the Warner Center in Woodland Hills and ending near Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Studio City.

Race organizers have opted for a half-marathon because it costs about half as much to put on as a marathon, Lovelace said. The Basin Blues budgeted $40,000 for last year’s race, but less than $20,000 had been committed to them through sponsorships before the race was canceled.

“A lot of people would like to see a marathon in the Valley,” Lovelace said. “It’s just very, very difficult. Money is so tough. The world just doesn’t need a whole lot more races. We recognize that. That’s part of our problem.”

Lovelace believes that a half-marathon will attract more runners than a marathon would because it is easier to run a half-marathon.

“You exclude a lot of people when you go to a full marathon,” he said. “That’s a major consideration. The attendance on races is dwindling a little bit, I think. There are only so many runners, and there are too many races chasing them.”

Lovelace and his group hope to build on the success of the half-marathon and stage both a half-marathon and a full marathon on the same day in 1988.

A half-marathon, though, isn’t even a sure thing yet.

A beer company and a local hospital have agreed to provide about half of the $20,000 budget, Lovelace said, but he doesn’t have anything in writing from them.

Even the date of the race is not certain.

“We’re not going to box ourselves into a specific date just yet,” Lovelace said. “I’m not going to say it’s going to be Jan. 11, as we have originally planned. It could be March. It’s just a matter of putting it all together. . . .

“I’m just terrified of announcing a race and not having another one come off.”

Lovelace, who was logistics manager for the 1984 Olympic marathons, has been trying to bring a marathon to the Valley for almost two years.

The inaugural race, which was scheduled for last Nov. 17, was canceled two months earlier when Prince Macaroni Manufacturing Co. told Lovelace that it did not want to help sponsor the race.

Lovelace believed he had a deal with Prince that would have made the East Coast pasta company the marathon’s major sponsor. But a spokeswoman for Prince said the company never seriously considered being a sponsor.

Basin Blues learned a difficult lesson, Lovelace said.

“They sent representatives out here twice,” Lovelace said of his experience with Prince. “We were almost in bed with these people, at least from our vantage point.”

And yet, no money was forthcoming.

“We have a different attitude about sponsors this time,” Lovelace said. “We’re not quite as naive.”

Lovelace is still committed to bringing a marathon to the Valley, he said, although “my stubbornness will buckle under the desires of a sponsor. If a sponsor says it’s not interested in a marathon, that’s fine with me. We’ll stay with a half-marathon.”

To Lovelace, the shorter race wouldn’t be half bad.

“To me,” he said, “the most important thing is to get a good quality race going in the Valley.”