The next Cooper River Bridge Run isn’t for another nine months.

But thousands will walk onto a bridge between Charleston and Mount Pleasant on Saturday — the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge.

Saturday, pedestrians will get their first chance to cross the new $632 million cable-stayed bridge, which replaces the harbor’s two older bridges.

Runners, among those most intimately familiar with the old bridges, also may be among the most curious about the new one.

“I want to try it out,” said Chuck Hooker, a lifetime Charleston resident and triathlete who plans to explore the bridge Saturday.

“I’ve had some friends go up surreptitiously and run it, and I just haven’t been willing to take the chance to get arrested.”

A pedestrian lane will allow runners and walkers access to the ocean side of the bridge. But this weekend — Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon and evening — pedestrians can cross without any cars. The bridge opens to traffic July 16.

Charleston’s runners have a special attachment to bridges.

“The only hills you’ve got are bridges,” Hooker said.

But the new Cooper River bridge, with its 12-foot-wide pedestrian lane, offers those looking for a hill a safer challenge.

“We used to run the old bridge three times a week,” said Charleston’s Glenn Braddock, who has done the Cooper River Bridge Run for 27 years. “You’re on a little sidewalk. You’re nervous.”

The new bridge not only has a pedestrian lane, but one hill, instead of two. And, while the old bridges have a nostalgic factor, the new one offers a breathtaking perspective.

“I think everybody’s just going to be shocked when they see the view from there,” said Julian Smith of Charleston, the director of the Cooper River Bridge Run. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”

Smith expects 50,000 runners to register for the next race on April 1, 2006. An estimated 37,000 — an all-time high — of the 42,000 who had registered ran or walked last year, he said.

Carol Thomason, who lives in North Charleston, said she plans to be one of them.

She stopped running in the race for nine years so she could volunteer. But last year, she put on her running shoes for the final trek over the Pearman Bridge.

“I did it for the last one, and I’ll do it for the first one.”