Route 66 Marathon Having Positive Impact On Tulsa Economy

It's time to get your kicks on Route 66 as thousands of runners will be pounding the pavement this weekend all over Tulsa.

Those runners are coming from all over the world to compete in the marathon Sunday. 11,000 are expected to race this weekend and officials estimate that will be millions in revenue for the economy.

Downtown Tulsa is already becoming a runner's playground.

Sunday will be the ninth time for the marathon that loops through Tulsa's downtown and historic neighborhoods, but it will be the first Route 66 marathon for Cory Hove,

11/21/2014 Related Story: Runners Spend Day At Route 66 Marathon Expo

He's running marathons in all 50 states, hoping to qualify for the Boston Marathon each time.

"I'm actually looking forward to it," Hove said.

Hove said the marathon is catching on in the running world and drawing hundreds of people to Route 66.

"Apparently there's like 250 marathon maniacs coming to this race so, to me, that's huge," he said.

Hove flew in from Arizona and is visiting his running buddy Karl Ahlgren who plans to run the half marathon Sunday.

"You can see races like Route 66 continue to grow and the reason they're growing is because of the community support, the sponsorships, but also just running in general," he said.

Race director Chris Lieberman has watched the race grow from 3,000 to 11,000 runners.

Chris Lieberman, Race Director, "As we've grown over the years we now have an estimated $5 million economic impact on the community and that's a big event, I mean try to book a hotel room, you can't do it this weekend, all the hotels are filled with people traveling here,"

The Doubletree Downtown, Hyatt Regency, Holiday Inn Tulsa City Center, Aloft Downtown, Marriott Tulsa Southern Hills and Doubletree at Warren Place are sold out.

Sue Ellen Smith is one of the thousands of people gearing up for Sunday's race. She picked up her packet Friday, the last step in a year of training to rock the route.

"When you look around and you see all the people, and when you're standing at the start line and you look in front of you and you see thousands and thousands of people, you realize what impact that has," Smith said.

Saturday is the 5k race and Sunday is the half and full marathon.