Record 35,000 Run, Cycle in L.A. Marathon

The upstart Los Angeles Marathon--smaller than New York’s, a whippersnapper compared to Boston’s--nonetheless made its own history Sunday as a record 35,000 runners and bicyclists braved foreboding skies to conquer a 26.2-mile urban route lined by tens of thousands of spectators.

The 11th annual marathon coursed through the historic, cultural and financial heart of Los Angeles in a new route that pays homage to the city’s future as surely as its old course--in the shadow of the Memorial Coliseum--was tribute to its past.

Sunday’s marathon combined high-tech with high-rises. Runners began in the shadow of downtown’s revitalized steel and glass skyline, and each runner had a plastic timing chip attached to his or her shoes, to record times more accurately and to prevent cheating.

Marathoners were set in motion by a starting pistol fired by Mayor Richard Riordan, with Councilman Marvin Braude stepping in as assistant triggerman. And the timing chips were activated by special carpets placed at the start and finish of the race.

The city’s marathon is not the nation’s biggest or its oldest, but like former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, who joined Riordan at the starting point, it was, in its boosters’ estimation, “the greatest.”

The event also was unmistakably L.A.: Competitors from world-class athletes to Elvis impersonators, octogenarians to schoolchildren, even a contingent of about 100 priests and nuns who had signed up prayer-by-the-mile sponsors, joined at the 8th and Figueroa starting line for a race that would take many of them all day to complete.

As the marathon began on time, at 8:45 a.m. on a winter-cool morning, a beaming Riordan declared: “It’s about Los Angeles. It’s about the beauty of Latinos. The beauty of African Americans. The beauty of the 158 cultures that make up this mosaic. What can be better than 20,000 people getting together and competing?

“You represent the greatest city in the world.”

Led by a record 19,284 registered runners, at least 14,500 cyclists and hundreds of participants in shorter races on foot and in wheelchairs, the event moved closer to competing with marathons in New York, which last year had 27,000 runners, and Boston, which this year celebrates its 100th anniversary.

With a crush of last-minute entries, marathon officials decided to lift the traditional cap of 19,000 runners--a decision they said would happen just this once.

For the first time, the race began and ended downtown on a new, faster route. Fewer turns and six downhill miles at the end were designed to draw better runners and more spectators to the city’s central core. Crowds outnumbered the athletes--45,000 people in Pershing Square alone--but the new route did not mean new records.

Jose Luis Molina, 30, of Costa Rica won the men’s event in 2 hours, 13 minutes and 23 seconds--two minutes slower than last year’s winner. And Lyubov Klochko, 36, of the Ukraine won the women’s division for a second time, finishing in 2 hours, 30 minutes and 30 seconds--about one minute behind the 1995 winner’s time. Both received a new car and $15,000.

For stragglers who were still gamely galumphing down Main Street nine hours after the starting gun, the only prize was satisfaction.

Traffic had been rerouted well before dawn, and was so clogged in places that some drivers simply let their runners out of their cars. Competitors wearing shorts, shirts and marathon numbers clambered up embankments and over fences to get to the starting line.

As runners gathered hours before starting time, tens of thousands of family and friends set up cheering stations. At 6th and Flower, Pedro Avalos, 15, of Santa Ana led a contingent to watch his father, Pedro, 35, and uncle, Mario Nieto, 34, compete in the race that Pedro’s father first ran when the boy was 9.

“It’s pretty fun,” said the younger Avalos. “It’s also painful,” said Avalos, himself a cross-country runner.

While there were obvious reasons for Avalos to be there, his friend, Jovany Ybarra, 11, came up with one more. “The girls,” he said with a grin.

Wheelchair athletes had been the first to start, at 8:35 a.m., swooshing past a three-man guard of Marines in dress uniform who were there to keep anyone from starting early.

Then, with Randy Newman’s wry ode to the city, “I Love L.A.,” blaring from loudspeakers, the footrace began. The song replayed on an endless loop as the rows of runners started off--so many that it took more than 10 minutes for the last of them to reach the starting line.

Whoever broke the tape at the other end, from the moment the event began, its undisputed champion was Muhammad Ali.

To adoring chants of “Ali, Ali,” the legendary boxer made his way through the spectators, surrounded by half a dozen LAPD officers.

“Oh my God, it’s Muhammad Ali,” Beatrice Pacheco, 43, of Lake Forest shouted as he ambled down Flower Street, stopping every few feet to shake hands and acknowledge the cheers.

“I’m so choked up . . . I can barely breathe,” Pacheco said. “He’s a living legend.”

Before Ali left the event, one of the last people he greeted was a man in a wheelchair. Robbie Vierra-Lambert was among a dozen or so men, women and children who got up from wheelchairs and used walkers and canes for their own event: a 200-yard trek as challenging as any Sunday.

“Today . . . [we] are going to get up and walk to the finish line,” said the 24-year-old Torrance man. Five years ago, a car accident left him with a broken neck, “just like Superman”--actor Christopher Reeve--he said, with a smile.

This day, he said, they would prove that determination and courage are not the sole domain of long-distance athletes. “The doctors said we would never walk again,” he said. “We’re here to prove them wrong.”

They did.

Others also had something to prove Sunday.

Former UCLA track star and coach Steve Lange, 40, said he hoped his second L.A. Marathon would show his students at Fremont High School that “if you make up your mind, you can do anything.”

Miguel Gonzales, 16, and Mike Ruedas, 17, said they ran to earn medals they would wear to show their classmates at Wilson High School. “It’s my last year in high school and I’m in my best shape,” said Gonzales.

Said Ruedas: “My sister and friends told me I couldn’t do it . . . I just want to show them I can.”

Eight-year-old Steve Cons of downtown L.A. knew exactly how he ended up in the middle of 19,000 marathon runners. “My aunt signed me up,” he said. His previous longest run: “Like three miles.”

The first of the day’s many events began at 6 a.m. outside Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, with the marathon’s 2nd annual Bike Tour. Unlike last year’s rain-soaked debut race, this contest went off as everyone had hoped: clear skies and loud cheers as riders wound their way from Hollywood through downtown, around the Coliseum and back.

The course was not without its wipeouts, the bikes not without mechanical troubles.

Barely three blocks into the race, 56-year-old Frank McNiff had to repair a flat tire. It was a nasty case of deja vu for the Pasadena businessman, who had a flat last year too. But entering the race was “just a lark. It’s really 26 miles without having to stop,” he observed from the curb.

The first person to zip under the finish banner, 33-year-old racing veteran Chris Johnston, a mechanical engineer from Santa Barbara and a member of the Diamond Back Racing team, completed the course in 52 minutes. “I got a draft all the way in,” said Johnston.

Then, by the thousands, they rolled in.

Chuck Eberly, 43, immediately whipped out a cellular phone to call his wife. “She said, ‘Yeah, no problem. I’ll meet you,’ ” before the race. She was still asleep when he called.

The entire Lee family from South Pasadena rolled through on a four-person “trail-a-bike,” which was powered mostly by mother Wendy and father Robert, with assistance from Kyle, 5, while Zack, 3, enjoyed the scenery.

Half a dozen roller-bladers also wheeled through the race, as did recyclists Riordan and actor Ed Begley Jr. Not far behind them was Kathleen Arena, resplendent in a flowing white bridal veil, astride her bicycle, with roses entwined in the handlebars.

“I’m waiting for a groom,” sighed the trauma nurse from West Los Angeles. “I found lots of possibilities. Didn’t catch any, though.”

When all was said and done, 42-year-old Jerry Oyama just wanted a smoke.

“I ride every day,” he said, puffing a Benson & Hedges, “so it balances out.”

The bicyclists had finished by the time the runners got started, and once the footrace was underway, spectators had several hours to kill before the bulk of contestants crossed the finish line.

Ara Derderian, who had come to watch his friend, 27-year-old Eric Wood of Granada Hills, had an inspired idea. “Get a bloody Mary,” he said. “And sushi.”

It was 9 a.m.

At the finish, the sense of accomplishment was unmistakable.

Eighty-two-year-old George W. Feinstein of Altadena made it in 5 hours 37 minutes--15 minutes faster than last year. “By the time I’m 100, I’ll be very competitive,” he quipped.

Times staff writers Kenneth Chang, Emi Endo and Paul Johnson contributed to this story.

* OLYMPIC REWARD: Los Angeles Marathon winners will go to Atlanta Games. C1