Under a picture perfect Southern California Spring morning, 5,050, runners/walkers took to the streets of Seal Beach for the 35th running of the Seal Beach 5K/10K race. The proceeds from the race, all of which are donated to local charities, are expected to exceed $100,000.
With a 20% increase in participants this year, according to Race Director, Bill Ayres, the race might have reached its limit. He said “We’ll be meeting and talking about that because we reached critical mass, I think.” Ayres said they had to turn down a group of 3,200 runners from Los Angeles because they could not handle the logistics. He said “Everybody wants to come down here and run.”
Ayres said “It was too crowded at the finish line. The crowds were all in the street and they were impeding people from finishing. We’re going to have to rope off areas in the future. We’re going to have to expand the finish line to both sides of the pier. We’ve got to start thinking about limiting the enrollment.”
Ayres said that there were 475 runners for the Kids’ 1K Fun Run. The ages were between “from the womb to eleven years old. We had some infants that were carried, some in baby carriages, by their parents and they had their shirts on and they had numbers on them.” So, they were official participants.
Ayres expects the race proceeds, which will be donated back to community organizations, to exceed $100,000, setting another record. Last year’s total, also a record, was $86,000. Ayres said “It will be another record. We had a record in sponsorships this year. We don’t pay attention to the national news where everybody is crying about the recession. We just go to work. We set a record in sponsorship money and we set a record in attendance also. Once all the bills are in, I’ll know for sure. We’ll zero out the bank account come June 15. We make it, we give it all away. We’re all volunteers, everything drops to the bottom line.”
The overall winner of the 10K was Grant Alan, 36, of Long Beach, California. His time was 34:20.9. Second place was Jack Anderson, 17, of Pfafftown, NC, with a time of 34:37.8. The fastest female was Becky Bershtel, 25, of Long beach, with a time of 39:19.3. Complete official results may be viewed by clicking here.
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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