LOS ANGELES MARATHON / DAILY REPORT : Entries Keeping Pace With Last Year, Official Says

The recession and the Southland’s tourism decline that some attribute to last year’s civil unrest apparently haven’t affected entries for Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon.

Race director Bill Burke said entries haven’t declined.

“I’m dumbfounded about it,” Burke said. “Every major marathon in America is down. Washington D.C., Columbus (Ohio) and San Diego were down this year. I expected us to be down because of the situation here in Los Angeles and the economy.

“We never release our numbers until the end. I thought we were running about 800 (entrants) behind, but I made a mistake in the numbers. We ran the race on March 1 last year and the race is on March 7 this year so I was comparing the numbers against the wrong date. So we’re basically on target from last year. I think we’ll be close to or exceed last year, when we had 19,836.

“Right now we have about 16,900 and we usually get about 3,000 to 3,500 at the Exposition.”

The L.A. Marathon has a self-imposed limit of 20,000.

The men’s course record of 2 hours 10 minutes 19 seconds was set by Martin Mondragon of Mexico in 1988. The women’s course record of 2:26:23 was set by Madina Biktagirova of Belarus of the former Soviet Union last year.

“Every year I say we’re going to break the course record, but I’m not going to say it this year because I jinxed myself,” Burke said. “But I really think it in my heart of hearts.”