One of the oldest running races in the country is going off road this year.
The Semana Nautica 15-kilometer road race is moving from the streets of Santa Barbara to the trails of Elings Park on July 4.
The race has been part of the Semana Nautica summer sports festival for 63 years.
The festival, which is celebrating its 80th year, kicked off on Tuesday with an art show at the Cabrillo Arts Pavilion. The show runs through July.
Athletic events begin Thursday with a 5-mile biathlon (4-mile run, 1-mile ocean swim) and a 1-mile ocean swim in the Reef & Run Summer Series.
The activities going on through the July 4 holiday weekend include masters and youth age-group swim meets at Los Baños del Mar Pool, the 1-mile and 3-mile ocean swims along East Beach, and the California Beach Volleyball Association’s Santa Barbara Men’s and Women’s Open Division Tournaments at courts set up in front of the iconic East Beach Bath House.
After staging the 15k race on the streets since 1933, race organizers felt it was time to make a change.
“We wanted to breathe some new life into this race,” said John Lofthus, president of the Santa Barbara Athletic Association and the race-day coordinator.
The July 4 race will start at 8 a.m., at Elings Park’s Godric Grove, and follow the trail that circumvents the park above Las Positas, Cliff Drive and Calle Galicia. The finish is at Godric Grove.
Patty Bryant, a member of the Elings Park board of directors and a SBAA member, came up with the idea of staging the race at the park, said Lofthus.
“She felt it just seemed like a great way to get people out, Lofthus said. “When you think about the Fourth of July, you think about picnics and family.”
Race day will include a 5k, a 1.5k dog run and a pancake breakfast.
“There is something for everyone,” said Lofthus.
He welcomes hikers and walkers to do one of the events.
Lofthus said race organizers had been mulling a change for the past couple of years.
“We did a survey of runners back in 2015 when it finished at San Marcos High (on Hollister Ave.). At that time, we were interested in changing the race course and wanted to see what people thought about it,” Loftus explained. “Most people were open to the idea of a different location. We experimented a little last year.”
The race start/finish was at Hollister School and most of course was on the bike path along Atascadero Creek.
“We did it partly because we wanted to make it a safer course,” he said.
Lofthus wanted the race to be as close to the beach as possible, but “we didn’t want to start and finish at Leadbetter Beach because that’s where every other race starts. It just worked out when Patty threw out the idea of having it at Elings Park. That just seemed like a great idea,” he said.
In addition to being in a more family-friendly spot, the new venue is going to save the organizers money.
“The other piece of it is this is going to allow us to substantially cut down on our expenses, so that we can raise more money for high school running programs,” Lofthus said. “It is a benefit for the local high school running programs. The event historically has been a break-even event.
“We’re hoping this year, we should be able to have nice net proceed that we’ll be able to donate to the various high school running programs.”
He said the reaction to the change has been mostly positive.
“You have more and more folks in the Santa Barbara area who are finding out about the trails and how much fun it is to run trails, myself included. I’m a converted trail runner. I’m doing the ultra races,” Lofthus said. “We got this really strong trail-running community. There are so many road races. If you want to run a 5k, 10K on the road, you have so many options every weekend in the greater in the Santa Barbara area, which is fantastic.
“A race like this, it’s a 15k, it’s on the trails but it’s really accessible. And, having it at Elings Park, with all the great things we’re going to have going around it, just seemed like a natural. We hope this will open up a whole new area for folks that maybe haven’t been interested in running it in the past and now see it and say, ‘Wow, this is kinda cool.’”
Other events include the second Reef & Run 1-mile swim on July 6; the Run to Surf Adventure Challenge at Leadbetter Beach; the always popular Krazy Kardboard Kayak Race at West Beach; the start of the two-day Santa Barbara Tennis Open at the Municipal Courts on July 8; and the grueling 6-mile ocean swim from Goleta Beach Pier to Hendry’s Beach on July 9.
Entrants in the ocean swims can vie for Semana Nautica Ocean Swimmer of the Year honors. To be eligible, male and female competitors must complete three events: one of the two Reef & Run 1-mile swims, the Semana Nautica 1-miler and either the 3-mile or 6-mile swim.
— Noozhawk sports editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.