ASICS Los Angeles Marathon CEO Tracey Russell is still settling into her new position out west, having moved from her leadership of the Atlanta Track Club last June to take the reins at L.A.’s premier endurance event. But as often happens on the roads of L.A., Ms. Russell has found herself nudging from one lane of responsibility to the next as the rush hour of marathon season begins to take hold.
So even as the Cleveland, Ohio native tries to figure out which of her things she had shipped out from Atlanta will work in the home she just purchased in L.A., she and her staff continue gearing up for the 29th running of the marathon on March 9th while anxiously awaiting the final decision by USATF whether L.A. or Houston will host the U. S. Olympic Marathon Trials in 2016.
“I had to unplug from work for about 24-hours,” she laughed during a phone call from her office near downtown L.A. “All my stuff was coming from Atlanta in boxes, and it was a little crazy. But I’m back at work now, and registration for the marathon is tracking well ahead of last year, so we will have a sell-out. We are working on our pro field now and the Olympic Trials. We also hired a new brand strategy VP, and he and Nick (Curl, race director) are working on TV.”
While previous rights owners of the L.A. Marathon were content with staging a national-quality event in their world-class city, current rights owner Frank McCourt, and the city itself, has an eye cast toward a larger target. (more…)
