A September visit by Pope Francis to Philadelphia, including an outdoor Mass that is expected to attract up to two million people, is forcing the Competitor Group to seek a new date and possibly a new course for its Rock ’n’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon, which had more than 15,000 finishers in 2014.

The papal visit, the first to Philadelphia since 1979, is “definitely a unique one-year situation” before the race resumes its customary place on the calendar in 2016, Competitor spokesman Dan Cruz told Runner's World Newswire. But Cruz emphasized that the race is not in jeopardy for 2015.

“It’s going to happen. It’s just not going to happen on the third weekend of September,” Cruz said. “We’re working collaboratively with the mayor’s office and the city. Realistically, we hope to have something resolved in the next couple of weeks.”

During his first visit to the United States, Pope Francis will be in Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families, which runs from September 22 to 27 and is the world's largest gathering of Catholic families, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. A Mass on Ben Franklin Parkway is scheduled for September 27. But visitors arriving in advance of the meeting will already be filling hotel rooms by September 20, which would be the usual date for the half marathon.

As a result, “every date from the end of summer to the end of fall is being looked at” as a possible race date, said Cruz.

The race's traditional course, starting and finishing near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and including a six-mile downtown loop and stretches on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and along the Schuylkill River, is renowned as being flat and fast; Deena Kastor set the world masters record of 1:09:36 on it in 2014.

“Every year, this is a big race, not just for the citizen runners but for the pros who are running [marathons in] Chicago or New York,” said Cruz.

But Philadelphia is crowded with large scale events on many autumn weekends, and the areas comprising the usual half marathon course might not be available on any of those weekends.

Two-time Olympian Alan Culpepper, Competitor’s vice president of government relations, said of the possibility of an alternative course, “We haven’t gone down that path very aggressively because we’re trying to identify a date first from a city resources standpoint. But we have to be open-minded to that at this point.

“We need city streets and a start-finish location, we need hotels and we need a convention center" for an expo, Culpepper said. “We’re still very optimistic that we’re going to figure it out. As details of the papal visit unfold, that’s when more options will become available.”

Culpepper acknowledged that a one-time change of date could mean the race won't work as a tune-up for many fall marathoners.

“We may attract a different level of folks," he said. "Maybe it doesn’t work out for marathon planning but it may attract people who wouldn’t have done [the Rock ’n’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon] otherwise.”

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