L.A. Marathon : Spectators Also Went the Distance

Fifteen thousand people were to descend any minute on the pavement in front of her Hancock Park estate, but Jeanne Eastus was still tying up loose ends before her “souffle and bloody Mary” brunch.

So busy was she that the supposed reason for the social gathering--the second City of Los Angeles Marathon--warranted only a short, if effusive, comment.

“They’re wonderful and they’re going to make a lot of money and win a car,” she said, referring to the race’s eventual male and female winners--Art Boileau of Canada and Nancy Ditz of Woodside, Calif.

Pancho Jones travels in different circles. The bedraggled panhandler, dressed in an unmatched three-piece suit and a heavy overcoat, spent the day begging for change along the race route in Hollywood. And he was as pleased as if he had indulged in Eastus’ brunch.

“I have made more money this morning than I usually get standing here for the entire day,” he boasted early Sunday, clutching a grimy Styrofoam coffee cup that held $11.

The organizers of Sunday’s marathon set up the 26.2-mile race route as an intentional display of the city’s ethnic diversity--and it was. It also told a compelling tale of wealth and poverty, frivolity and compassion.

Compassion filled Pancho Jones’ coffee cup and also overflowed amid the largess of Hancock Park, when a wheelchair racer speeding down the route smashed into a pothole. Then 17 miles into the race, he looked down to see a wheel grotesquely bent.

“I need help,” the man cried. “I don’t have the strength.”

Bystanders rushed into the street and hurriedly bent the wheel back into shape. And then the man rolled on.

Los Angeles celebrated its marathon Sunday in its own erratic style. If it was the People’s Marathon, as race organizers often dubbed it, then it was also the People’s Marathon Party, and there were hundreds of thousands of attendees loosing their inhibitions upon the race.

At its start in Exposition Park, and along the journey through Little Tokyo, Chinatown, Echo Park, Hollywood, Hancock Park, mid-Wilshire and Pico-Crenshaw, spectators celebrated while urging on the runners.

Bands played, dancers danced. Sleepy residents who had somehow eluded the grasp of pre-marathon hoopla awoke to gawk at 15,000 people streaming down the city’s streets.

It was not all fun: The closure of more than 26 miles of streets brought traffic to a standstill in some locations, particularly on the western edge of the race route. Along the route, others found it impossible to join the traffic jam--their cars had been removed by tow trucks hired for the marathon.

Uninvolved Group

Dismay could also be found at Aliso Street and Broadway downtown, where five women and their small children huddled, awaiting a tardy RTD bus.

“There aren’t any signs telling us where to catch the bus,” complained Dawn Oliva, holding her sleeping baby daughter in her arms.

“Stupid marathon,” another woman grumbled.

The race kicked off promptly at 9 a.m. in Exposition Park, but crowds began building there hours earlier. Families arrived to send off their loved ones; runners sought last-minute counsel with an orthopedist and a sports psychologist.

Michael P. Woronieki of Grand Rapids, Mich., looked over the thousands at the starting line with disapproval.

“You are headed for hell,” read the 10-foot-high sign that he carried. He was there, he said, because the runners were wasting “all that energy.”

“I’m a party-pooper for Jesus,” he added.

Well after the last of the runners had started off down Figueroa Street, Sammy Rubin, a Memorial Coliseum security guard, rushed across the starting line, clad in running gear with one shoe yet untied. “I want to get in the race,” he said breathlessly, and headed off.

In Chinatown, runners and spectators were greeted with the ear-splitting sound of 20,000 Chinese firecrackers. Strung over a tall street lamp in front of a herb shop, the fireworks spit sparks, smoke and shredded red paper, frightening babies and forcing adults to clap hands over their ears. But the runners did not seem to flinch.

Thinks It’s Lucky

“It brings them good luck,” noted a somber Bill Hong, a Chinatown restaurant manager, who lit the wick.

That was only the beginning of Chinatown’s celebration. Young men wearing 40-pound lion heads, each representing a different mythical god, danced along Broadway to the beat of cymbals, a gong and an ornamental black drum. Children dressed in rabbit costumes, commemorating the Chinese Year of the Hare, scampered afoot.

“Gung hay fot choi”-- Happy New Year--”to all the marathon runners,” exclaimed Ron Quan, pounding on the dancer’s drum.

Along the Sunset Boulevard stretch of the race, Echo Park’s immigrant population tried to make sense of the festivities. Helping out--perhaps--was the City of Industry’s 45-member Workman High School Band, which belted out tunes ranging from the “1812 Overture” to “Louie, Louie.”

Large crowds of Latinos and Asians--some wearing “I Echo Park” buttons--gathered at the eight-mile mark on Sunset near Logan Avenue, cheering and shaking their heads in amazement as the hordes thundered past.

“My god,” one woman said in Spanish to a friend, “there are so many women in this race. . . . Why would they want to run?”

Huge cheers emerged when runners wearing the national colors of Mexico, Guatemala and other Latin American countries strode by. “Orale, Mexico . . . Orale, campeones (champions),” shouted the spectators.

An overly friendly German shepherd stunned marathon officials when he suddenly gave chase to a wheelchair racer and, playfully, tried to bite him.

Annoyed Owner

“Get back here!” the dog’s owner, a young boy, thundered, as the canine chased the racer two blocks. Finally, the animal obeyed--and was rewarded with a firm slap to the rump.

Hollywood, being Hollywood, had its share of thrills--or in the case of Marian Ramirez, non-thrills.

“I thought maybe there would be some stars here,” said the Glendale woman, miffed. “I’m sort of mad because I haven’t seen any yet.”

At the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue stood Alfred Egervari, who walked one block from his house to see the race.

“You watch their faces and all the styles of running and you can see their determination,” he said. “It’s so much better than watching this on TV.”

It got better, still, Egervari said, after the world-class runners passed.

“Now to me, this is the interesting part,” he said. “You see the ordinary people, the people you work with, the people who bag your groceries, the guy who lives down the street. . . .”

Off to the side of the marathon path, at the 13-mile mark, sat two runners clearly enjoying their beer.

“About the best thing I can drink after a marathon,” said Jack Erbeck of Ventura. “There are as many calories in one beer as there are in running one mile, so I guess I’ve got another 12-pack to go.”

Erbeck and a companion, Ingrid Hainline of Ventura, are veteran marathoners, but both decided to stick to 13 miles in this race. So they stopped in Hollywood, enjoyed their beer and then tried to hail a cab to take them to an afternoon performance at the Music Center, downtown.

“I love the variety of neighborhoods in this marathon,” Hainline enthused. “We got cheered at in more languages here than we did in the Frankfurt (West Germany) marathon.”

In Hancock Park, a similar sentiment was pronounced by Laurel Martin, who with her husband, Henry, sat on Rossmore Avenue and watched the race. At their side was a silver tray heaped with bananas for hungry runners.

“This neighborhood is very insular, but look at this!” she said, pointing to the crowds. “I think this is the most people I’ve seen on this street before. Even the dogs are out.”

And informality was the day’s hallmark. One runner stopped in front of their home, took off his wet, dirty socks and turned to Laurel Martin. “Would you please throw these out for me?” he asked, before donning another pair and scampering off. She did.

Looking for Her Son

Farther on, near Wilshire Boulevard and Ardmore Avenue, Leona O’Leary scanned the runners for any sight of her son, 40-year-old John Stevenson, whom she expected to see in the middle of the pack. He showed up 25 minutes later than she expected, but she was still waiting with half an orange and a piece of banana--to “give him the extra energy he needs to complete the race,” she said, sounding just like a mother.

At Perino’s restaurant on Wilshire, the city’s consular corps assembled to eat brunch and cheer their countrymen. Mayor Tom Bradley, the event’s host, never showed up, but consular officials seemed not to miss him.

“Anything that you can do to bring nations together will always have a positive effect,” said Abdelhak Sauod, consul from Morocco.

At the Coliseum, runners from all nations had one thing in common--they got over the finish line, whether by staggering, or running gleefully.

They were met by well-wishers, who saved their biggest and perhaps most emotional cheers for Bob Wieland, the legless Vietnam veteran who pulled himself across the finish line shortly after Boileau won the men’s race.

Wieland, who competed by swinging his torso along with his powerful arms, started the race Wednesday, covering six or seven miles a day, so he could finish amid the crowds on Sunday. And on Sunday, as he slowly came into view, the crowd’s congratulations built into a roar.

Wieland and the other finishers were met by volunteers who held them up, rubbed them down, and offered them food and drink.

Jenny Ericksen, 13, found herself in the volunteer area helping out. She had one very definite opinion about the marathon.

She’s Turned Off

“It’s gross and disgusting the way they come in here, sweating,” she confided. “They smell.”

Less judgmental was seventh-grader Johnathon Briggs, who stationed himself on a curb one mile from the finish line, in a neighborhood of pastel bungalows, leading cheers. Some runners flashed him a thumb’s-up sign, others grinned; some, lost in pain, stared ahead.

“It makes them feel good about themselves,” the 13-year-old concluded. “It makes them feel it’s worth it.”

Times staff writers George Ramos, Michele L. Norris, Lynn O’Shaughnessy, Joel Sappell, George Stein and Deborrah Wilkinson contributed to this article.