Alameda Runners – Get After It!

Runners are posting race reports, sharing pictures and videos with friends while the City of Oakland enjoys the positive impact of the Oakland Running Festival (ORF).

Last year’s event attracted around 6,300 participants and left Corrigan Sports Enterprises (CSE) owing money from the inaugural event. However, the company’s efforts in Oakland will follow the same successful blue print as its Baltimore event that successfully expanded to more than 25,000 runners.

Both the half and full marathon courses showed beautiful scenery and parts of the City that many of us wouldn’t run through otherwise. For one weekend in late March, the City of Oakland will have one more event to look forward to that shows the support from the people.

C SE picked up the $775,000 tab — including around $100,000 for Oakland Police overtime — and the City of Oakland is expected to collect more than $2 million in revenue.

As someone who has seen the good and bad sides of Oakland, it was great to see the city come out in support of runners. I know visitors from outside the Bay Area think of Oakland only as a magnet for crime and violence, though for just one weekend all was forgiven. The two ladies on Mandela Parkway in West Oakland cheering for runners  “You are in West Oakland, West Oakland, Run, Run, Run…” and their local neighborhood was well-received among runners.

There were fans lining the street throughout most of the half marathon course, cheering and supporting us the entire run.

The Oakland Half Marathon last year was my first distance race, I had a lot of fun then and I had a great time again this year, so I look forward to the Oakland Running Festival 2012.

A big shout out to the Brown Sugar Cafe on Mandela Parkway for the excellent custom brownies made just for us runners.