The Roanoke Times

File Aug. 12 Organizers of the Blue Ridge Marathon hope to draw 1,000 runners for the inaugural race, which will start and end in downtown Roanoke. Early registrants hail from California, Canada, Texas and the Midwest.

The founders of Roanoke's new high-climbing Blue Ridge Marathon have higher hopes for the race's power to reveal Roanoke's virtues to the nation and jolt the local economy.

The unusually grueling course climbs over 16 miles of mountains between flatter stretches and a downtown start and finish. It throws down the gauntlet before runners for whom tackling 26.2 miles isn't enough of a gut check.

The race's organizers see a chance eventually to draw thousands of runners to the area. And they hope those runners will follow the example of participants in America's 400 other marathons and charge the local economy with millions of dollars in economic impact.

But the experiences of those who organize marathons and follow their economic impact suggest that a tough race course and large numbers of runners don't follow the same path. The Roanoke race, set for April 24, looks like it will be a niche race, rather than a big draw for both veterans and first-time marathoners and the friends and family they often bring along, they say.

Of the more than 400,000 people who run a marathon each year in the United States, how many might take on a calf-straining challenge like the Blue Ridge Marathon?

"I, honest to God, have no idea," said John Carlin, a veteran marathoner and co-chairman of the race committee.

But, says Carlin's co-chair, Pete Eshelman, it's not just about attracting a lot of runners -- it's attracting the right ones, the serious outdoor enthusiasts who might develop an appreciation of the area while here and visit again, maybe move here, or maybe even move a business here.

"I think we are kind of going for a niche market," he said.

Roanoke has forever undersold its appeal to outdoorsy types, said Eshelman, director of outdoor branding for the Roanoke Regional Partnership. The marathon is a first chance to sell Roanoke's natural appeal on a national stage, he said.

"It feels right," Carlin said.

That's a sense born of how the race came together.

Carlin had been talking with U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, for years about the potential for a marathon on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Then, in February, at an event celebrating an article about Roanoke in US Airways magazine, Goodlatte's legislative aide, Pete Larkin, told Carlin that 2010 would be a good time for the marathon, because it's the parkway's 75th anniversary. A few minutes later, Ronny Angell, owner of Salem-based Odyssey Adventure Racing, came up to Carlin and told him if he ever put on that race he'd been dreaming of, Angell's company would be willing to organize it. A few minutes later, Angell introduced Carlin to Eshelman.

Within a week, the group met and the planning was under way.

In choosing a course, Carlin said, the group asked itself, "Do we want to be just another small city marathon, or do we really want to stick out?"

They decided to stick out.

Roanoke Mountain, one of the area's highest peaks, became a focal point, Carlin said. And to get there from downtown, you have to run up Mill Mountain, too.

They also plotted a half-marathon course, which covers similarly tough topography.

There's no question that a road race can be a powerful economic engine. Respondents to an economic impact survey of participants and visitors to Virginia Beach's weekend-long Shamrock Sportsfest spent an average of $632 while there, a study supplied by the race organizers showed. Most of it is spent on lodging and food. About 23,000 runners participated in the Shamrock events this year, 80 percent of whom came from out of town, and generated an estimated $7.5 million in spending, the study said.

And marathoners have money to spend. A 2005 study found marathon runners have a median household income of $139,000 before taxes.

But the marathon business is becoming a crowded field, with more than 400 races in the United States alone, according to Running USA, a nonprofit running advocacy and research group.

Any particular region has a very limited window when the weather and climate are amenable to a marathon, and then there's the competition with other races. Charlottesville's marathon is the weekend before Roanoke's, for example. The Shamrock race is about a month earlier.

The typical marathoner can't manage more than one or two races a year because of the training and recovery time required. Many run one in a lifetime as a "bucket list" kind of accomplishment.

The SunTrust Richmond Marathon, dubbed "America's Friendliest Marathon," focuses a large part of its marketing on those first-timers. About 40 percent of its runners are first-timers, said Scott Schricker, marketing director for the race. That mirrors the national profile of marathoners.

First-timers are attractive, Schricker said, because they tend to bring family to witness their achievement, and consequently spend more money.

Other races have increased their impact by making their event not just a marathon, but a diverse offering with appeal for a marathoner's entire family.

Amy Frostick, race director for the Shamrock, said that's why they expanded from a Saturday event to a two-day one. They added children's races to an existing 8K race on Saturday, moved the marathon to Sunday and added a half-marathon, which quickly became the most popular race to run.

That encourages the marathoner to bring family along and stay the weekend.

"They've packaged it to meet a lot of the needs of different customers that are associated with racing," said Bob Case, a sports management professor at Old Dominion University who does the analysis of the Shamrock and other races. That's something Roanoke's organizers haven't had time to consider as they get their event off the ground.

"If you just went with elite runners, you'd have a much lesser draw," Case said.

The Country Music Marathon in Nashville, Tenn., which next year is scheduled for the same day as the Blue Ridge Marathon, learned that the hard way.

The race started 10 years ago with hilly course, and participation fell off from 7,500 the first year to 6,300 the second year, said Adam Zocks, the race's general manager. Organizers flattened the course and added a half-marathon. Last year, the races had a combined 31,000 participants.

The Mount Rushmore Marathon in the Black Hills of South Dakota, which has a mountainous course like Roanoke's, has seen steady growth in recent years, said Steve Kurtenbach, president of All Sports Central, which organizes the race. He attributed part of that to adding a second, easier marathon course that now draws more runners than the original.

Zocks added that part of the Country Music Marathon's success was people realizing that Nashville was a great destination apart from the race.

Roanoke's race organizers are banking on that good word-of-mouth advertising about the area, too, and not just in the short term.

To Eshelman, the race is one tool for attracting young professionals to the area to live by introducing them to its great outdoors.

Get those desirable workers here, and the companies that want to employ them will follow, the logic goes.

Still, it has to begin in the short term. And to be a success, it has to draw runners. Eshelman and Carlin are hoping for a combined 1,000 in both races in the spring.

If the marathon doesn't draw a crowd, or the crowd falls off in the second year? "Reasonable people have to make reasonable decisions," Carlin said.

So far, signs are good. The handful of early registrants are from California, Canada, Texas and the Midwest.

Carlin and Eshelman aren't alone in their optimism.

"Roanoke's Blue Ridge Marathon will offer toughness, beauty and bragging rights," Dave Watt, a blogger for the American Running Association, wrote recently. "That may be enough."