June Snow had a great idea and she ran with it.

Snow and her husband, Rusty, are the founders and producers of the Santa Barbara Marathon, which will hold its first race this December.
 

The course will take runners from just west of the Camino Real Marketplace on Hollister Avenue, loop around through Goleta and finish 26.2 miles later at Leadbetter Beach in Santa Barbara. Its founders hope that by coming right through the heart of downtown Santa Barbara, the race will create a new cultural attraction and provide a much-needed economic boon to the city’s hospitality industry during its off-season.

“We decided that if we were going to have a marathon, we had to be disruptive,” Snow explained. “We weren’t tucking it away on a bike path somewhere; it was going to go right down the main street. A marathon needs to be seen. It needs to draw people.”

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