Photo by Troy Harvey
Special to The Star

Agoura High graduate Deena Drossin Kastor, left, was happy with the turnout for her holiday front run Sunday.

Photo by Troy Harvey
Special to The Star

Runners make their way down Agoura Road during Sunday's fun run hosted by Olympic marathoner Deena Drossin Kastor.

Clearly, the idea of running with an Olympian has some allure.

Even for the Olympian.

About 100 people turned out in Agoura Hills on Sunday morning for a holiday fun run with Deena Drossin Kastor, the Agoura High graduate and 2004 Olympic marathon bronze medalist. And while there were smiles all around after the informal run, it was hard to find anyone more enthused than Kastor.

"It was great," said Kastor. "An awesome turnout and it was fun running with people from the front of the pack to the back of the back. It was a great morning. I think everybody enjoyed themselves."

Runners were on hand well before the scheduled 8:30 a.m. start, and remained on hand afterward as Kastor visited with the participants, autographed posters and helped give away items from her sponsor, Asics, at Future Track, the Agoura Hills running store operated by her coach at Agoura High, Bill Duley.

"This is awesome," said Duley. "She always had a pure joy for running on even the simplest levels and this kind of shows it. She called me up so excited that she wanted to do a holiday run."

Participants came from all age groups, and — as word of the event spread through various running websites — included participants from throughout the Los Angeles area, as well as some more distant locations.

"We're from Portland," said Tina Wood, an Agoura High graduate visiting from Oregon with her husband, Monte. "This is beautiful. It's pouring rain there, and this is like a summer vacation today. It's great that she's here and giving back to the local community. It's really a neat event."

The gathering also reflected a cross-section of the varying ages of the local running community.

"There are people here I know are in their 70s," said Duley, "some high school athletes and I think a few youth runners, and everyone in between."

That delighted Kastor as much as anything.

"That's what running is," she said, "and I think that's what makes the running community such a special community, is that you can take all levels and abilities and ages and socioeconomic barriers and put them aside, that people can put one foot in front of the other and we can all share this.

"The running community is a pretty tight-knit community and it definitely felt like a family affair out here I got to visit with some old friends, but also make a lot of new ones."

Other runners clearly appreciated that.

"We're friends of Future Track," said Suzanne Hollister, on hand with her daughter Caroline, a runner at Westlake High. " They sent us an e-mail about Deena Kastor's visit this morning. I thought it would be fun to bring my daughter and two of her friends out to meet her, and at least say they had run with an Olympic athlete. I thought that was really cool."

With Kastor varying her tempo throughout the run of more than four miles, to allow her to visit with as many runners as possible, about a third of the group will be able to do more than that - they'll be able to say they completed the run ahead of the Olympic medalist.

But that wasn't really the point of the event. This was a social outing, not a competitive one.

"It's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come out and do this," said Kristine Skiba, a Cal Lutheran student from Oak Park. "Hopefully in years to come, we can say we ran with an Olympic-quality runner."

"She's a really good runner," said Skiba's younger sister Melissa, "and we wanted to ask her stuff."

Plenty of the runners did just that, as Kastor stuck around afterward and about her training routine, mental approach and just about anything else the other participants wanted to ask.

"I think she's just so appreciated in the running community because of her grace and humility with her status," said Duley. "So many athletes are standoffish and don't bother me,' and she's just the opposite."