Police Say 2 Marathons Must Be 30 Days Apart

The San Diego City Police Department ended a month-long dispute between the San Diego Holiday Bowl Marathon and the San Diego Marathon, by announcing Thursday that the Holiday Bowl’s application for a Dec. 12 marathon would be approved and that no other marathon would be allowed within a 30-day period of that date.

The San Diego Track Club, which operates the San Diego Marathon (formerly the San Diego Heart Assn. Marathon) had planned on a Dec. 5 date, but now will move its race to Nov. 8, a date San Diego Track Club President Keith Jeffers had as a secondary choice.

Thursday’s decision by the police ended nearly two months of concern that two marathons on back-to-back weekends would be too much for the city to handle.

“A request for two marathons within a seven-day period is an unreasonable drain on city and police resources,” said Sgt. Jeff Fellows, special events coordinator for the police department’s traffic division. “It’s an obvious decision that had to be made. We wanted to make a decision quickly in order to give everyone time to work things out.”

Fellows told The Times a week ago that the most recent Holiday Bowl Heart of San Diego Marathon cost the city $20,000, and that 186 officers were used to staff traffic positions at that event last December. Fellows also said that many were unpaid reserve officers from five area cities. The police department was also concerned about the cost, since the additional officers aren’t paid by the marathons but by the police department, and that officers working special events can’t perform their other duties.

The San Diego Heart Assn. had teamed with the Holiday Bowl group the past two years, but has switched to co-sponsoring a race (the San Diego Marathon) with the San Diego Track Club, the Mission Bay Marathon’s sponsor for 23 years. The Heart Assn. reportedly made the switch because of disagreements with the Holiday Bowl group over financial arrangements with In-Motion Inc., a race management group.

“We’re delighted,” said John Reid, executive director of the Holiday Bowl. “We just felt the scenario of two marathons a week apart was ludicrous.”

The decision came as no surprise to the San Diego Track Club.

“We’ll be fine,” Jeffers said. “We’ll go on and put on our world-class event. We’re pleased with our plans.”

Early Thursday, Jeffers believed there was still a chance he could get Nov. 22, a day he felt would suit the SDTC best because it didn’t conflict with the New York City Marathon, one of the country’s most prestigious. The Nov. 8 date is just a week after the New York event and would cause a conflict for big-name runners.

In a last-minute effort to get the later November date, Jeffers, using Fellows as a mediator, asked Reid to move the Holiday Bowl Marathon to Dec. 19, but Reid refused.

“I just asked him to move it,” Jeffers said. “If we had a choice, we’d like to look at Nov. 22, so we would only be moving our event two weeks back, not a month.”

Said Reid: “We want it to be a part of the Holiday Bowl festivities. One of the great things about our date is that it isn’t too close to Christmas.”

In April there was nearly a merger between the Holiday Bowl and San Diego marathons. It fell through at the last minute when SDTC merged with the Heart Assn.

“It still makes sense to work for a big city marathon,” Reid said. “Our doors are still open to that.”

Lynn Flanagan, co-owner of In-Motion Inc., echoed Reid’s statement.

“I still feel very strongly that this city can only support one major marathon,” she said.