Marion Rotary Marathon will shut County Home Road for a time on Sunday

Users of County Home Road in Linn County should plan for a detour on Sunday to make way for the first-annual Marion Rotary Marathon for Shoes.

The marathon race starts at 7 a.m. and the race course starts and ends at Linn-Mar High School, twice taking marathoners onto County Home Road along the way.

Linn County Engineer Steve Gannon and the Linn County supervisors on Monday talked of closing County Home Road from Alburnett Road east to 10

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Street and to Lucore Road at the race's start and then keeping the section from Alburnett Road to 10

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Street closed until the end of the race, which will be 1:30 p.m. for marathon walkers, Cody Crawford, race director and Marion City Council member, said on Monday.

Crawford thought the runners and walkers should clear the stretch of County Home Road between 10

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Street and Lucore Road within the first hour or two, but the marathoners return to County Home Road at the 22-mile mark between Alburnett Road and 10

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Street and so he would like to see County Home Road closed between those two north-south roads until 1:30 p.m., he said.

Gannon and the supervisors agreed that it made sense to close sections of County Home Road, but Gannon estimated that it might cost $2,000 to pay county workers to put road closure signs in place and take signs down. Having volunteers put up signs could leave the county open to liability if there's a collision between a van injury or accident on the race course.

Crawford, Gannon and the supervisors will talk more at the supervisors' Tuesday meeting.

Crawford said as many as 1,000 participants have signed up for the Sunday running-walking event, which also features a half-marathon and a relay marathon.