LA Marathon

LA Marathon 2011

It's been a couple of months since I ran the LA Marathon. I had planned to run my fastest time to date while only running 2 days a week, a medium run and then a long run. I was going to supplement this with a lot of cross-training of all different sorts.

As fate would have it, due to injury and then circumstance I didn't do even that much running and not very much cross-training either. In fact in the weeks leading up to the Marathon, I didn't do a lot of sleeping or resting, working 12+ days and being under the stress of moving and selling our house.

To say I was unprepared would be an understatement. But of course I was going to give it a try.

I managed to get some sound sleep in the two nights prior to the race.

My hamstrings had been tight so I decided to try out this Kinesiology Therapeutic tape. I seen various athletes use it so I figured I'd give it a try, even though I know you're not supposed to deviate from training and dieting routines or wear new gear the day of the marathon. I've shirked that advice off in the past and not suffered for it.

It was supposed to be cold and rainy. I've run in below freezing, snow, sleet, hail as well as in three digit heat so extreme weather was nothing new for me.

I new the course from the year before, so that would be a big help. Last year I bonked because I thought it was more downhill than it was. This year I could pace myself accordingly.

I got a lift in from a friend who I've trained with in the past and ran a few marathons with. She had been training with Students Run LA. I did one training run with them the year before. The organization, the kids, the adults that help are all an inspiration and I think being with them in the morning helped buoy me through a couple of times in the run.

This year more than any other was a mental game. The years of pushing my body, training, running the various marathons all helped me know what I could probably get away with.




When my legs started cramping at mile 15, I knew how to adjust and knew that I would be able to push through but that the cramping would most likely continue intermittently for the rest of the race and that in all likelihood other parts of my body would start to cramp as well.

They did. I also new that if I could make it to mile 19 and the Salonpas aid station, I could get sprayed down and that would probably give enough relief that I could get back to a decent pace compared to the hobbled crawl that I had managed in the last couple of miles.



That theory held true until mile 24 when I was really suffering. By that time the wind and rain had picked up considerably and was blowing against us.




I zipped up and tried to power through.

It was the hardest last mile since my first marathon. The big difference was that this time around I was looking forward to my next marathon, confident that if I actually trained I'd beat my personal best probably go under 4 hours and feel much better during and after the ordeal. My first marathon I thought would also be my last. It probably took me ten years to be ready to do my second. Now I can't imagine not doing at least one a year.