The 22nd edition of the Hoag OC Marathon Running Festival opens its expo this weekend with more than 25,000 runners across the marathon, half marathon, 5K and kids events, and an unusually high proportion of debut finishers. Race organisers confirmed on Friday that nearly 47 per cent of marathon entrants and 33 per cent of half marathon entrants are running their first race at the distance, a debut share that places the Newport Beach event among the most accessible of the major American spring marathons.
The marathon and half marathon both start on Sunday morning at the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa and finish in the harbour-side village at Newport Dunes, with the full marathon weaving through Costa Mesa and Santa Ana before tipping into Newport Beach for the closing miles. The course is largely flat and the late-spring forecast is favourable, with overnight cloud expected to give way to mid-60s temperatures and a light onshore breeze for the leaders crossing the line shortly after 9am Pacific time.
The first-timer surge mirrors a wider American trend captured in the latest RunSignup participation data, which has shown the marathon distance growing in nearly every region as new runners trade race-day novelty for the structured training that running clubs and brand-led plans now offer year round. Hoag OC organisers have leaned into that shift this year, expanding the festival village, adding a structured first-timer breakfast on Saturday, and pairing the expo with a free 5K shakeout that drew more than 4,000 runners on Saturday morning.
The elite field is led by a small but credible American group rather than imported pacemakers, with Hoag OC continuing its policy of platforming domestic talent in front of a packed home crowd. The men's race is headlined by California-based Eric Hamilton, while the women's race features defending masters champion Jocelyn Garcia, a former NCAA Division II distance runner who returned to the marathon last spring after a long injury layoff. Prize money runs to the top eight in each race, with bonuses on offer for course records that have held since the post-pandemic rebuild of the route.
Beyond the elites, the OC weekend has become one of the busiest spots on the West Coast running calendar, with Sunday's marathon overlapping the same weekend as the Pittsburgh Marathon, Broad Street Run in Philadelphia and the Miwok 100K trail race. For the runners staging at the OC Fair Center on Saturday evening, however, the focus is local. With nearly half the field heading into the unknown of a first marathon, organisers have framed Sunday's race less as a competitive showcase and more as a community milestone, with the finish-line carpet primed for several thousand debut celebrations before the day is done.