If you want to run, run a kilometre.
If you want to change your life, run a marathon.
Emil Zatopek

From its conception, the La Rochelle Marathon Association has sought to organise an event that is popular, friendly and festive. These original aims have remained the tenets of the organisation and a careful watch is kept to ensure that its members all hold the same views. The basis of today’s Association is the coherence between its beliefs and its practices.

An Association which knows the meaning of 'volunteering'…

The La Rochelle Marathon is the only race of its size to be run by a not-for-profit association. Even if the Association itself only has 50 members, at the peak of its activities the event brings together over 1000 volunteers. A dinner dance is organised for these volunteers each January as a token of the organisation’s gratitude.

A financial policy which is based on equality and fairness…

One of the first principles of the Association is not to pay ‘appearance money’ to any competitors despite the almost universal existence of this practice in races of the same importance and even in numerous, more modest events. The prizes that are given to the winners in each category are identical for men and women. Entry fees are waived for runners who are unemployed.

A firmly citizen-based event…

The involvement of local associations and in particular of residents associations is at the heart of the event’s success. A special relationship has been built with the prison at St Martin de Ré and this includes the participation of some inmates in the race. Each year, the Association organises training for a group of twenty La Rochelle citizens who have never run a marathon. This ‘marathon for novices’ has only one aim, to get to the end of the race without too much pain. The Marathon Association has voluntarily taken steps towards becoming a clean marathon.