Sedona Becomes Site of New Marathon

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, with elevations from 4100 feet to 4650 feet, is projected to 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. Naming 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.




Sedona Becomes Site of New Marathon



***Note This page is an Archieve of Publicly released information either through our company or another Press Release organization. We do not "fact check", "Support", nor "Dispute" any of the information provided to us. We are a distribution point and Historical press release research and search service. This information only represents the fact that at one point in time the release was distributed to 1000's of publications both online and off. PRNewsNow will not take sides in any personal or commercial disputes you have with the writer of this press release. We will defend its right to exist blindly and without regards to its political, commercial or personal implications.***