Marathon

More than 2,000 children from 45 county schools took part in the sixth annual Kids Run the OC event Saturday at the OC Fair & Event Center. The 1-mile run in Costa Mesa was the last leg of a 26.2-mile, three-month fitness program. The children’s program was designed to encourage physical fitness. The children’s race helped kick-start festivities for the OC Marathon, which will start at 6:30 a.m. today at Fashion Island. The course will take runners through Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Irvine before ending at the OC Fair & Event Center.

When Jean Wegener, executive director of the Costa Mesa nonprofit Serving People in Need leaves work each night, the phones at the office are always still ringing these days. ?And they never stop ringing, all night,? she said. The charity, which offers homelessness-prevention programs and other assistance for people in crisis, has seen over the past few years a 65% increase in calls that it receives from families in financial trouble, Wegener said. Volunteers for SPIN will take to the streets today with the OC Marathon to raise money for families teetering on the brink of homelessness.

That sea of people you might see doing last-minute stretches in front of Fashion Island early Sunday morning? They wont be shoppers looking to take advantage of some early bird special. They’ll be among an estimated 10,000 runners trying to go the distance and complete the 2010 O.C. Marathon or run half the course. A record total of more than 13,000 runners are expected to take part in the full marathon, half marathon and shorter races, and other related activities taking place today, Saturday and Sunday.

You could call them mini-marathon runners. Yes, they’re going to run the full 26.2 miles like everybody else, only they’re going to run it a little bit at a time, these children from Killybrooke Elementary School in Costa Mesa. “They come out here twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday, and they run a mile during each session, which lasts about an hour,” said Principal Kathy Sanchez. “By the time May rolls around, they’ve virtually completed an entire marathon.

A three-year-old boy clung to his mother, as they awaited death. They were held against their will, forced to strip down naked, in an old warehouse in Ukraine during World War II. Alex Sytnyk doesn’t remember all that took place when he was 3, but he does recall the words from his mother. It was the last time he heard her voice. “I want you to run away from here; God will protect you and guide you,” she told him. Those words continue to resonate in his mind as he runs.

The soles of Casey Cochran’s feet are black by the time he finishes his regular run from his home near Newport Pier to the famous body surfing spot the Wedge — at the tip of the Balboa Peninsula — and back. Cochran, 28, has been running the six-mile circuit barefoot, mostly on city streets, in preparation for the Santa Barbara International Marathon on Dec. 6. The founder of the eco-friendly website greenguidenetwork.com , Cochran hopes his barefoot run will raise money to buy shoes for children in developing countries.

With their neon green capes, it will be hard for spectators at the OC Marathon to miss members of the CureDuchenne Crusaders, who will take to the streets of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa today to raise awareness for a terminal genetic disease that strikes young boys and has no cure. “These boys aren’t old enough to speak out about their disease, so we have to speak for them, and we try to be obnoxious as we can with our neon green capes,” said Newport Beach resident Debra Miller, who founded CureDuchenne with her husband, Paul Miller, after their son was diagnosed with the disease in 2002.