OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon is postponed until October 4, 2020 in response to coronavirus.

The Museum will also be closed starting March 15. Organizers are reworking plans for the remembrance ceremony on April 19.

“We’ve never made this decision in our history,” Kari Watkins, executive director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, said.

Organizers say they’ve been in the talks with health officials for several weeks.

“Just trying to figure out when was the right time, was there a right time, should we make the call?” Watkins said.

They picked the date of October 4 based on availability in the convention center, streets, and hotels.

Jon Beck, co-owner of Red Coyote Running, says they’ll be moving their marathon training program to start in June.

“We worked all afternoon after the announcement came out, and we are going to roll all of our training program members into a fall program,” he said.

Despite the unprecedented move, Beck says it won’t change the passion and support behind the tradition.

“What this means to the community is so much better than canceling. This is something that everyone’s going to get behind again, nobody’s going anywhere. They’re not going to lose participants, if anything I think it’s going to be even stronger,” he said.

Beck also says a postponement won’t stop runners from getting together in smaller groups to do what they love.

“Our community is still going to get to come together. We’re still going to remember every single person that lost their life, 25 years ago this spring, and we’re going to remember all of them,” he said.