He’s resolved to get people off their duffs

LOOK at it as a personal-training session for your willpower.

For those who see New Year’s Day as a chance for a fresh start with good habits -- rather than the traditional day of sloth and football -- fitness buff and publicity agent Laurence Dean Cohen has a deal for you.

For $85 you can run in the sand and then swim around the Santa Monica Pier -- and it will help you keep your New Year’s resolutions. Or at least that’s the premise behind Resolution Festival, a for-profit, daylong gathering aimed at helping registrants stay true to their self-promises.

Cohen swears by New Year’s resolutions. He says he’s used them to lose 60 pounds, get out of debt (though that took more than one year’s resolve) and break an expensive habit of parking illegally. “I probably saved myself $750 with that one,” Cohen says.

But for most people, a New Year’s resolution is a good intention waiting to die. “A lot of comedians have fun at the expense of people who fail at them,” Cohen says. “For me, it is something I believe one should take seriously.”

Working under the assumption that any nobly intended backslider simply needs peer support, Cohen organized Resolution Festival by bringing together motivational speakers and “challenged athletes” -- from those missing limbs to others suffering from physical deterioration due to Parkinson’s disease -- as inspiration.

“Real people get to see other real people facing much bigger challenges than ‘I’m too tired’ or ‘too lazy’ or ‘I haven’t exercised in 10 years,’ ” says Cohen, himself an avid cyclist, runner and longtime public relations agent for the Los Angeles Marathon.

The still-evolving schedule includes a 10K “Soft Sand Run” on Santa Monica Beach, led by John Ball, who became a marathon runner after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1983, and Gary Deckman, a former contestant on the “World’s Biggest Loser” show.

The “10,000 Steps Walk” will be led by Ernie Van Leeuwen, 92, the L.A. Marathon’s oldest participant, and William Malmskog, who lost a leg while working as a Hollywood stuntman and works now as a Lake Arrowhead firefighter. And the half-mile “Polar Bear” swim around the pier -- wetsuits required in the 58-degree water -- will be led by Roy Perkins Jr., 15, of Del Mar, a member of the U.S. Paralympics national swim team and holder of several national and international records.

INSPIRATION for keeping resolutions doesn’t come cheaply. Fees are $35 for the walk, $45 for the run, $65 for the swim or a combination of walking or running and the swim for $85. Each fee includes a $10 donation to one of five charities, and participants receive a 30-day pass to a fitness center and a certificate for a free haircut at a Beverly Hills salon.

Cohen says the event wasn’t conceived as a moneymaker. “The real genesis was to provide people with the inspiration and motivation and support on New Year’s Day as they embark on their New Year’s resolutions.”

But wouldn’t it make more sense to offer that support a few weeks later, when most people, their resolutions turned to dust, are making the transition from self-promise to self-recrimination?

Not to Cohen, who sees the excesses of New Year’s Eve as the beginning of self-delusion.

“People are already making excuses on New Year’s Day on why today is not the day to give up drinking, or start my diet, or whatever it might be,” Cohen says. “For people taking this seriously, the notion of congregating and getting inspired by other people is one of the things that may help them realize they are not alone in this.”

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Resolution Festival

What: Walking, running and swimming events; motivational lectures and displays; ceremonies honoring physically challenged athletes

Where: Santa Monica Pier, foot of Colorado Avenue

When: 9 a.m. Sunday

Price: $35 (walk), $45 (run), $65 (swim), $85 (swim and either of the other events)

Info: (310) 474-4832; www.resolutionfest.com