LA Marathon

It wasn't an easy decision, "should I run the LA Marathon this year?" I have wanted to run LA for the last few years but, so far, had not worked in my schedule due to other races. This year, it wasn't another race that stood in the way, but the fact that I may not be properly trained in time for the race. Since my hernia surgery in early February, I have struggled to get my mileage up to pre surgery levels. I think I underestimated the time that your body needs to recover from surgery and thought I could just continue on without missing a step... Wrong!

Looking back at the previous 3 months before each of my marathons and comparing the miles, I only did about half the miles that I did at last years Long Beach Marathon, where I ran a PR of 4:07. So, it is really no surprise that I ran a 4:29:32 in LA. It is still disappointing. It's a few seconds slower than my first Marathon, making it my slowest. Each of my previous 3 marathons had progressively gotten faster, so this was a bit of a bummer. If I were to do it over?? I'd do it in a heartbeat, cause it was a BLAST!!!

I'll spare you all the gory details of the pain in the last few miles and instead focus on what went right. The running community was a little concerned about this race, particularly the change in date and the chance for much warmer temperatures than it's usual March date. Lickily we were blessed with perfect conditions. The temperatures held in the mid 60's assisted by a nice marine layer! It was truly a gorgeous day. The spectators were INCREDIBLE! I can't remember any significant section of the course that wasn't lined with enthusiastic supporters. It really was amazing. The race itself was very well run and organized. Even the parking was effortless. I left WAY too early, expecting traffic and hassles and they simply did not exist. Kudos to the new owner of the LA Marathon for a very enjoyable race. I will be there for my revenge next year.

I also had the pleasure of meeting some of my new twitter pals at the race. It was really cool to meet them in person after chatting for the past couple of weeks. We are all still chatting and now a bunch of us are planning on doing the Long Beach Marathon in October. Very, very cool!!

I apologize for the lack of links and pictures in this post, but I am writing this on my iPhone as I am on the trainer (that nasty multitasking thing) and the app that I am using is a somewhat limited program.