Fell Will Run Into Some Old Friends on His Birthday

Every five years, Alan Fell gives himself an unusual birthday present: a run of one mile for every year he has lived.

Fell turns 65 today, so at 3 a.m. Saturday he will leave his Corona del Mar home for an all-day run through Irvine and Newport Beach.

“It’s really exciting for me, as crazy as it might sound,” Fell said. “People are really getting into it, and you know, 65 is just a number.”

This is no lonely pursuit for Fell, who expects 12 to 15 friends and family to join him for part of his run, including seven classmates from his 1953 graduating class at George Washington High in San Francisco.

Two friends, Barry and Sue Michaelson, plan to stay with him on bicycles for the entire distance, giving Fell mobile supply vehicles stocked with water, sports drinks, bananas, animal crackers and jelly beans. “Not the designer jelly beans,” Fell said, “the regular old-fashioned kind.”

Fell, who has finished 28 marathons, including Boston in 1995, made his first birthday run in 1986, covering 50 miles at age 50. He continued the tradition at 55 and 60--finishing that distance in less than 14 hours--and shows no signs of slowing down.

“You might be older when you are 65,” he said, “but you aren’t old.”

IRVINE LAKE

Irvine Lake’s fishing concession, bedeviled in past years by low water level and low attendance, decided not to renew the contract of General Manager Steve Miller. Miller, who helped manage the lake for nine years under another concessionaire, was hired a year ago to increase attendance.

“It was strictly a financial thing,” said Dave Noyes, general manager of Serrano Water District, which leases the lake from the Irvine Company. “He was hired as a consultant to turn things around and it just hasn’t happened.”

Miller said he was surprised by the move because he felt he was making progress. Under his leadership, the lake added a five-acre family fishing lagoon that opened Saturday, helping to account for the lake’s best weekend of the year at more than 900 visitors.

“I’m just extremely disappointed,” Miller said. “There was a lot of effort that went on there, long nights and days. I’m kind of worn out over the thing.

“I think the timing was terrible.”

The water level has risen 19 feet in a month, Noyes said, and this month Robert Becerra of Orange set the lake record with a 22.55-pound rainbow trout.

Noyes said the lake is moving forward with plans to attract visitors.

Saturday the lake will hold a free Pathways to Fishing clinic at the lagoon. The event, which starts at 8:30 a.m., gives children a several-hour fishing lesson and a chance to catch one trout from the lagoon. Details: (714) 649-9113.

SLATER COMEBACK?

Kelly Slater is apparently considering a full-time return to the Assn. of Surfing Professionals tour after two years of semi-retirement.

This month before the Quiksilver Pro World Qualifying Series event on the Gold Coast of Australia, Slater spoke about a comeback with ASP media director Jesse Faen.

“I’m definitely thinking about it,” Slater said. “It has started to get me excited again, thinking about being back on tour.

“I have been competing since I was 8 and it’s really natural for me to compete. I love competing. I love trying to win world titles and trying to win contests. It’s exciting for me. I’ll see how this year goes for me and how I’m feeling. I think it is pretty safe to say I will [make a comeback].”

That should worry the current crop of World Championship Tour surfers. Slater, who won six of seven world titles from 1992-98, has been tough to beat even as a part-timer.

In 1999, he stepped back into the water at Pipeline Masters and blasted the competition. He won again, at Teahupo’o, in 2000.

However, Slater was upset last week in the fourth round of the Quiksilver Pro, finishing fourth behind Brazil’s Paulo Moura, Fabio Silvia and Australia’s Shane Wehner.

Slater had trouble catching good scoring waves in deteriorating, shifty, three-foot conditions at Duranbah Beach.

“I could make up a whole lot of different reasons but it’s all part of the process of coming back,” Slater said in a report on the Quiksilver Web site. “These are exactly the sort of things that I have to deal with and remember if I am going to return to the tour.”

NOTEWORTHY

Mission Viejo’s Cameron Brenneman won the Vision Quest, a 52.5-mile mountain bike ride in the Santa Ana Mountains Saturday, finishing in a course-record 5 hours 3 minutes. Emilio Cervantes of Rancho Santa Margarita was second in 5:23. Doria Henderson of Incline was the first female finisher in 7:58. Ashley Moore of Mission Viejo won the 40-mile Counting Coup in 4:26, and Tim Konicek of Lake Forest won the 24-mile Seek the Peak in 2:50. . . . Darryl “Flea” Virostko of Santa Cruz won the air show at the Totally Crustaceous Tour VQS Championship surfing event Sunday at 54th Street in Newport Beach. Zach Keenan of Cardiff won the men’s pro-am, Nate Tyler of Templeton won the junior division and Kilian Garland of Orcutt won the groms division.

If you have an item or idea for the On the Go notebook, you can fax us at (714) 966-5663 or e-mail us at martin.beck@latimes.com