2016 Avocado Half Marathon and 5K postponed to Sept. 24

The date for the third annual Avocado Half Marathon and 5k, which race organizers originally planned to present May 28, has been changed to Saturday, Sept. 24.

The race's official website, http://www.avocadohalfand5k.com, on April 22 posted the following notice:

"Dear Running Community. Due to unforeseen permitting issues with the County of San Diego, the May 28, 2016, date for the 3rd Annual Avocado Half marathon and 5k will be moved to Saturday, September 24, 2016 and will start at 6:30 a.m. This event will still start and finish in historic downtown Fallbrook. As event owners, directors and runners ourselves, we are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you."

"Canceling this event was never an option, but the new guidelines set by the County of San Diego that we were just made aware of, has forced us to postpone this event five months. We are dedicated to giving our runners the event that they have signed up for and that is what we will do on September 24, 2016. The staff, sponsors and the community of Fallbrook have invested a year's worth of blood, sweat and tears to make sure this 3rd annual event is here to stay for years to come."

Andrew Pettersen, who as a senior partner of Seasick Sports Marketing Group put on the race for its first two runnings in 2014 and 2015, is putting on this year's event as the CEO of GMP Marketing. For the second straight year, the nonprofit Fueled by the Fallen, which assists in supporting military members, public safety personnel, and their families in their emotional, physical, and financial recovery needs, has contracted with Pettersen to manage the race.

"The county came at us with something which we haven't had to do the past two years, and that is to have a civil engineer sign off on our 46 pages of our traffic control plan that we turned in," said Pettersen.

Murali Pasumarthi, manager of traffic engineering for the County of San Diego in the Department of Public Works (DPW), was asked via phone calls and an email about Pettersen's claim. Pasumarthi, who didn't return the phone calls, had Alex Bell, Group Communications Officer, respond to the Village News' email. In her email, Bell referenced a line in the Depart of Public Works special events permit that states: “Plans are to be prepared by an engineer or licensed traffic control contractor with experience in preparing plans.” Bell added, "This is not a new requirement."

When informed of Bell's reply, Pettersen said, "We do that every year. We submit our plans through our traffic control company. That's not the issue. The civil engineering thing is a whole new thing that they've thrown at us. That's the issue. Murali informed us about it on the phone in March. And when he told us about it, he didn't have much information about it, other than we had to do it and, 'that it would be wise for us to change our date,' which we ended up doing.

"What they put on paper for you, is not what we're talking about," continued Pettersen. "I only deal with Murali and I only deal with Robert Fuller (permit coordinator for DPW traffic engineering office). Anyone else in that office can't tell you about our conversations and can't tell you about our meetings. Only those two people know."

When asked to explain the role of the civil engineer would have, Pettersen said his research discovered the following: "A civil engineer would have to come out and look at every single sign placed on a California road to make sure it's not in an endangered species area or wetlands, stuff like that. What they are asking for is not even on the permit. The civil engineer is completely separate from the company we use."

Pettersen said he plans to turn in all his paper work pertaining to the Sept. 24 race to the county by "the end of the month."

“We will provide what is required by the application that is public knowledge and according to the information on the web site," said Pettersen. "Actually, we will be providing even more because we’ve done it for two years and know that some stuff that’s not on there, they're going to ask for. We'll do it in advance just so we don’t have to go back and forth."

Despite the date change, Pettersen said the race has retained most of the runners that had signed up for the original May 28 date.

"I’m happy to say that 95 percent of our runners are still running the event," said Pettersen. "People who have wanted refunds, they have called us and we have dealt with each individual appropriately. We have been in contact with all of our runners constantly through email, social media and by phone."

The route for the Sept. 24 race begins at North Main Ave. and West Hawthorne St. in downtown Fallbrook. From there, runners head south out of the main town area via South Main Ave and turn onto East Fallbrook St. for a little over a mile.

Runners next turn right onto South Stage Coach Lane and continue on South Stage Coach Lane to S. Mission Rd. Turning left onto Mission Rd., they then turn left again onto Winterhaven Rd., which they will follow to the first turnaround point of the race, at Green Canyon Rd. After runners make the turn, they head back north along Brooke Road, past the edge of Dinwiddle Preserve, for a mile or so before making the second turnaround of the course. Once they've made the second turnaround, runners then retrace their steps all the way back to the race finish.