Modesto Marathon, Riverbank One Day highlight big weekend for runners

The local running community has plenty to look forward to this weekend, with races going, literally, around the clock.

The inaugural Riverbank One Day, the brainchild of Modesto’s Jon Olsen, will get underway at 6 p.m. Friday and will conclude 24 hours later. There also will be six-hour and 12-hour races.

The main event comes Sunday – just 13 hours after the conclusion of the One Day – where 3,000 runners will take to the streets of Modesto for the seventh annual Modesto Marathon, which starts downtown at 7 a.m.

Neither of these are events for which you can sign up at the last minute, buy a pair of sneakers and participate. To take part in these events, one needs to train for weeks and months – perhaps even years – for an ultra event.

But you don’t have to be a runner to enjoy the festivities.

Head over to Riverbank High School and watch the participants run around, and around, and around the Bruins’ new all-weather track.

Typically, 24-hour runs finish in the darkness, when fatigue and sleep deprivation start to rear their ugly heads. The Riverbank run will finish in daylight.

“Night time is some of the most difficult running in a 24-hour race,” said Olsen, the 2013 International Association of Ultrarunners’ 24-hour world champion who is making his initial foray as a race director. “When you get to daylight, you get a second wind.”

If watching runners race around in circles gets a bit monotonous on Saturday, head over to Harvest Hall in Modesto’s Centre Plaza, 1000 L St., for the annual fitness expo.

There, runners can pick up race packets and visitors can check out the latest equipment, apparel and nutrition products.

The expo is free and open to the public and goes from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Returning this year to defend his men’s marathon title is Fresno’s Jesus Campos, who also won the event in 2013 with a course record 2 hours, 26 minutes, 53 seconds. He was runner-up in 2014, so he’s always a serious contender.

Sunday’s weather forecast calls for partly cloudy skies with temperatures in the low 50s for the start of the marathon and climbing to the mid-60s around noon.

The temperature will be around 70 at the outset of the 24-hour race, dipping to the low 50s around sunrise on Saturday before returning to the 70s near the conclusion.

The marathon is an official qualifier for the Boston Marathon, while the 24-hour race is an IAU national championship qualifier.

This story was originally published March 17, 2016 at 5:36 PM with the headline "Modesto Marathon, Riverbank One Day highlight big weekend for runners."