Q&A; with Doug Ingram:

Doug Ingram knew he had to find some sort of exercise about 16 years ago just before his son, Dimitri, was born.

Ingram, a Newport Coast resident, took a bit of an extreme route, but discovered running could become a way of life for him.

“I realized that during my wife’s pregnancy I had developed more pregnancy-related weight than I think she had,” said Ingram, co-chairman of the OC Marathon. “I realized that it was time to get active again.”

Ingram, also the executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Allergan, joined a marathon training group and never looked back. He has ran in 22 marathons and countless half-marathons. Today, for the fifth straight year, he’ll run in the half-marathon (roughly 13 miles), part of the OC Marathon that starts at Fashion Island in Newport Beach and ends at the OC Fair in Costa Mesa.

Ingram, 46, was among the founders of the OC Marathon and is delighted to see the race continue to grow.

He took time out to speak with the Daily Pilot Saturday morning.

Question: When did you complete your first marathon and what was that like?

Answer: It ended up being the Tucson Marathon in Arizona. It was an extraordinary experience, an amazing feeling of accomplishment. But I’ll tell you, it took a little bit of time, about an hour after the race, to really feel that accomplishment. It is a really tough experience, regardless of your level of fitness. The wonderful thing about long-distance running and marathon running is that it bodes something very elite and something egalitarian. The people who have run a marathon are in a very elite club of human beings. However, really almost any person, regardless of where you are starting from a fitness level can train and run a marathon. That’s the amazing thing about it. It really doesn’t take a natural runner to run a marathon.

Q: How do you prepare for a marathon?

A: I’ve run 22 marathons and I started as a person who really had never ran, maybe about a couple of miles. I thought a 5K was an ultra-marathon. You start with a very slow, methodical process. You begin to increase the volume of running you do. Six days a week at moderate distances and one day a week you start doing the long runs. The long-runs concept becomes the backbone of training for a marathon.

My long run for training for my first marathon was four miles. And it was long for me that day. You just start going. What you find over time is you just begin to adapt. You just start to surprise yourself. It’s a common misperception that it requires a natural runner to be in a marathon or you have to be at a high level of fitness.

Q: What’s great about this new course for the OC Marathon in comparison to the original?

A: There’s some really interesting things about the new course that are going to make it a big part of our future. The course that we’ve had the past four marathons we’re very proud of, but it had some limitations. The half-marathon was always a good race. But the prior marathon, frankly, got difficult and people say somewhat boring toward the end.

The current course has a lot of things to be commended. It’s fairly flat. It’s going to be a beautiful course. You’re going to run and you’re going to see some of the best parts of Orange County. You’re going to see the ocean, the beautiful parts of Corona del Mar. You’re going to see the Back Bay, which is a gem in Orange County.

Another part of this course, is that it’s diverse as a course. If you’re a marathon runner, you don’t want the same thing. You’re going to see the homes and Back Bay, run toward South Coast Plaza and end up at the OC Fair.

It is truly an OC Marathon course. We’re an unusual race. We’re not a race that is dedicated to one city. We’re a race that’s trying to showcase Orange County.

One of the problems with the old course was in the latter parts of the race, right when you need them most, there weren’t any spectators. You were climbing hills and there were no spectators.

Q: What do you see for the OC Marathon five years from now?

A: The aspiration is, we’ve always said from the beginning we have a very audacious goal. There’s a small group of marathons in this country that are at an elite level that the world looks at on a different level than other marathons, like the New York, Chicago and the Boston Marathon.

We really see the OC Marathon someday getting to a place where it’s moving up to that level. That’s the goal and that’s the standard we hold ourselves to.

We want to move it into the community and make it something for the people of Orange County to be proud of.

Q: What’s been the best part about helping put together this marathon?

A: The best parts have been, interacting with charities. That’s been very rewarding. Working with the staff of the OC Marathon is great. They are very dedicated people.

I’ve been a runner or a long-distance runner, but having the opportunity to look behind and see what it takes to put a race like this on, has been surprising and interesting and in its own way rewarding. The logistics of putting on a race like this have been amazing. To watch this race grow, in size and quality, has been truly rewarding. You consider where we came from, literally sitting in a conference room just talking about the idea, to now, it’s all very interesting.