FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Livesay
800-775-7671
Sedona Becomes Site of New Marathon
(Sedona, AZ) A rousing new, athletic event - The Sedona Marathon -
showcasing Sedona's spectacular backdrop of natural beauty for marathon
runners, comes to the area February 11, 2006. A half-marathon and a 5K fun
run/walk concurrently debut making the event appealing to attending
endurance athletes' friends and families as well as eager locals.
Sedona-based Four Winds Adventures, a leading event production company of
extreme adventure races in the U.S. since the 90's, owns the Sedona
Marathon and plans to make it an annual winter feature of the region.
In its first year, the event is scheduled to attract competitors from
national and international locations, and is destined to become a winter
must-do for dedicated marathon runners, growing in future years to many
thousands. Sedona with its arts and culture base, fine dining and
world-class hotel establishments, located only two hours from the nearest
major international airport, is already a favored tourist destination, and
will eagerly welcome a new and younger athletic demographic who can return
year to year to recreate, eat, stay and enjoy one of the most beautiful
places on earth. The Sedona Chamber of Commerce, a Sedona Marathon Gold
Medal Event Sponsor, will serve as a key information source for
participants through its top quality area tourism
website www.visitsedona.com.
With average daytime February temperatures around 59-60 degrees and
precipitation for the month at just around 1.5 inches overall, the weather
in Sedona promises to be fresh and bracing. High dry air desert elevations
of around 4500 feet, in a landscape sprinkled with deep green juniper,
pinyon and Douglas pines, will challenge racers to stay properly hydrated
after having trained for the higher altitude. The magnificent red rocks
will inspire racers with uplifting vistas as they traverse the course.
The course design is to projected include some major city and county
streets, with an eye to shared resource use and no major closures. As
well, the running route includes dirt roads in the surrounding forest.
This way, The Sedona Marathon can have a dramatic and challenging course,
with not only the profile of a standard marathon asphalt road race, but
with the drama of dirt roads through sparsely populated wildland areas in
the uncrowded timeframe of February.
The Sedona Marathon will benefit T.A.P.S., the Tragedy Assistance Program
for Survivors of military personnel lost in the line of duty (taps.org).
T.A.P.S. has a strong national profile and a tremendous outreach program to
bring aid and support to individuals in crisis when they lose a loved one
or friend in the military. The Sedona Marathon also recognizes the
Sedona-Oak Creek School District for its dedication to our future through
the children of our community. Partnering with the District as a
beneficiary of The Sedona Marathon enables area local schools to benefit
from fund-raising efforts through the marathon.
As with any large sporting event an energetic local volunteer base will
contribute to the success of the event and the memories that the visitors
take away, and different community organizations and individual citizens
will be invited to come out and support, cheer on, encourage and invite
back the Marathon competitors and their entourage of friends and families.
Government representatives can also add to the welcome of the event
participants, introducing a warm reception for the participants,
encouraging them to return again and again to Sedona.
Four Winds Adventures is responsible for event management, national
sponsorships, marketing, TV production and distribution, host venue
selection, celebrity and athlete procurement, and event development, design
and production. The Four Winds intent is to grow this event annually into
an internationally known and sanctioned sporting adventure. For more
information see www.SedonaMarathon.com or contact 800-775-7671.
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