I'm running the Los Angeles Marathon today. It's in dedication of my late uncle who used to run the L.A. marathons every year since its inception before his untimely passing in 2001.

The course will be 26.2 miles and will zigzag through various neighborhoods in the city and will culminate downtown. Not quite sure of what to expect. Been training for the last 4 months.

I'm looking to best my uncle's time of his last marathon which was 7 hours and 4 minutes.

Headed out the door now! Gah!

good luck !!

the best of luck to you.

I wish i was even fit enough to run a mile.

I think you'll do it in 4hrs 20 minutes.

good luck and have fun!

As a fellow marathoner I salute you.

Here I was crossing the finish line of my first marathon a couple of years ago. I was hurting like a bitch so there isn't a smile but I was gushing on the inside



Be sure to post a follow up after your run and spare no details. I actually wrote out a pretty long thread about my first one but without a search engine I wouldn't even begin to know where to look since it almost 2 years ago. Since then I have run two more and I am training for a spring marathon which I plan to use as a jumping off point to a really awesome fall marathon (if wedding plans and stress don't get in my way). In fact I am sitting at the computer all sweaty just having gotten back from running. It's an addiction and I would say that there is a good chance you might be hooked on marathoning.

GOOD LUCK!

Good luck to you!

Dean, when is that marathon in Rochester?

good luck!

Rock on! There's no way I'd be able to do it!

That's fabulous Janfan! I just saw a movie yesterday called Runners High about a program in Oakland that trains teenagers to run the LA Marathon. If you get a chance, you should check it out!


www.runnershighfilm.com

I was hoping for a post about how it went. Anyway I was just thinking back to the day after my first marathon where my legs got stuck on the table I rest them on while I surf the net. I had to use my hands to get them down I was so sore

OH MY GOD!!!! That really is incredible!!!!!


M

If it were me, I would have to pretend everyone behind me was chasing me and that I was chasing after everyone in front of me. Cause unless I am chasing or being chased I ain't running.

Only time I run is when I run out of cigarettes so I have to run out to the store to get some more

Let us know how it was.

Thanks, everybody!

Well, I ran the marathon yesterday... and Finished! ;D

I finished in a little over 5 hours (which is pretty good considering I didn't know what to expect, being my first). The course was low-impact for the first 16 miles, but once we hit the Mid-Wilshire area, it began to get really hilly. I had to stop at a nurses station once to get a cold pack for my calves.

I'm fortunate to say that I ran 16 miles non-stop. Once I hit mile 18, however, had to make a pit stop.

The people of Los Angeles were very supportive. It was a congenial atmosphere. At the start of the race, the mayor of L.A. waved to us, lots of balloons were everywhere and people were coming out of their houses offering us refreshments and sliced fruits.

My legs are still pretty sore from the affair, had to soak in Epsom salt. But other than that I feel great and I'm pumped to run another. Hopefully, I'll be able to place in the New York Marathon later this year. Lottery entry begins this summer.

This definitely won't be my last.

lovemachine said:

Hey, there! Thanks for posting this.

Whoa, can I tell you that around mile 17 after drinking some Gatorade I felt so much fecal incontinence! I had to run to a restroom or I swear I would've gone on myself. It was so wild, I had steam emanating from my legs while in the restroom. I never felt like that before.

This is the longest I ever ran, too. The most I've done in the past was 17 miles on a treadmill, but it doesn't compare to running 26.2 on real road conditions.

Luckily, I trained for about 4 months prior, had I not at all I probably would've finished in 6 hrs. and had some serious injuries. I got really pumped up by Mile 25, so I got some extra pep in my step and ran through the finish line with my arms in the air and a big-as-day smile on my face

Many runners had cuts on their feet and some were escorted away in stretchers.

I will say, that after I crossed the finish line, my legs felt like they were peppered with shrapnel! I couldn't wait in line for the free 5-minute massage so I was escorted to a runners station where a team checked my blood pressure, gave me cold packs, Gatorade and wrapped me up with blankets.

.
[Edited 3/20/06 3:08am]

There were a few deaths during this marathon...

Exuberance of L.A. Marathon Tempered by Runners' Deaths

Two men suffer fatal heart attacks along the 26.2-mile route. Another who collapsed is hospitalized in critical condition.

By Cynthia H. Cho and Sandy Banks, Times Staff Writers
Source: http://tinyurl.com/hathf
March 20, 2006


The weather was perfect, the field enthusiastic, the times respectable, but Los Angeles' annual street party masquerading as street race was marred Sunday by the deaths of two runners and the collapse of an elderly man who was hospitalized in critical condition.

Two retired law enforcement officers died after collapsing on the route. Det. Raul Reyna, 53, suffered a heart attack at mile 24 near Olympic Boulevard and Westmoreland Avenue, two miles short of the finish line. He died at Good Samaritan Hospital. The 28-year Los Angeles Police Department veteran had worked on the use of force investigation team at Parker Center, officials said.


Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy James Leone, 60, collapsed at mile 3, near Exposition Boulevard and Figueroa Street. "He just dropped … keeled over and hit his face on the pavement," said David Lawson, who interrupted his own run to administer CPR to the fallen runner.

"His face was covered with blood and his eyes were open, but we never really got a pulse," said Lawson, a private pilot who volunteers part time on a ski patrol team. He and another runner, a physician, spent several minutes trying to revive Leone before paramedics arrived, said Lawson, who then resumed his run. Leone was pronounced dead upon arrival at California Hospital Medical Center.

Sheriff's officials said Leone was participating in his 11th L.A. marathon. He was a 26-year member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and had retired in July 2000.

Lt. Fred Corral of the Los Angeles County's coroner's investigation division said Leone, who lived in St. George, Utah, had been under a doctor's care and may have suffered from cardiovascular disease.

He was accompanied to the marathon by his wife and daughter. Marathon officials said this was the second time in the 21-year history of the race that there had been a fatality along the course.

The only other known death during the Los Angeles Marathon came in 1990, when a 59-year-old Altadena man under a doctor's care for hypertension suffered a fatal heart attack while running in the fifth annual race. William McKinney, who had trained for the contest under a physician's care, suffered heart failure at the 21-mile mark near Crenshaw and Pico boulevards.

Just nine blocks into the race Sunday, a third runner, believed to be in his 70s, suffered a heart attack near the intersection of Figueroa and 15th streets. The man, whose name was not released, was taken by paramedics to California Hospital Medical Center, where he was in critical but stable condition Sunday night.

The tragedies unfolded unnoticed by most runners.

More than 25,000 competed in the marathon, and 20,000 participated in the wheelchair race, bicycle run or companion 5-kilometer race. Open to all comers, the marathon has no qualifying requirements.

Race purists were captivated by the to-the-wire competition between elite men and women runners for a $100,000 bonus given to whoever crossed the finish line first. Russian Lidiya Grigoryeva won that distinction though her time was 17 minutes slower than the men's winner, Benson Cherono of Kenya, because women were given a head start intended to equalize their chances in the novel challenge competition.

Thousands of other runners considered themselves winners just because they finished.

Sixteen months ago, Liz Roark weighed 323 pounds. A nurse, she got winded just walking down a hospital corridor. Gastric bypass surgery enabled her to lose 100 pounds, and eight months of training for the marathon helped her drop 65 pounds.

She ran Sunday's marathon with two friends, fellow gastric bypass patients Keri Zwerner and Luana Ball. The trio has lost a combined 500 pounds in the last five years. They had to skip the typical pre-race, carbo-loading routine; the gastric bypass process rules out big pasta meals. But the women filled their fanny packs with bite-sized snacks, along with such essentials as water and cellphones.

Perseverance meant more to Roark than speed, as evidenced by her mascot — a green turtle emblazoned on her white cap. It took her more than seven hours to run the 26.2-mile course.

Many of the runners were accompanied by friends. At the 15-mile marker, 30 men, women and children from Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in El Monte gathered beneath a cabana-style tent to cheer on 57 parishioners running in glowing lime-colored shirts.

Among the runners was their diminutive 64-year-old priest, Father Francisco Vitela, participating in his sixth marathon. Each year, the church's runners line their sneakers up along the altar and Vitela blesses them with holy water.

Vitela, who says he "hates running," listens to classical music on a headset as he runs and prays that more people will join the ministry. During a stop in the tent, parishioners fed him, massaged his legs, removed his shoes and changed his orthopedic socks. A few minutes later, he was back on the course. A few hours later, he would be celebrating evening Mass at the church.

The race route was designed to showcase the city's architectural and cultural glory. It begins in the shadow of downtown high-rises and winds through neighborhoods in Koreatown, Little Ethiopia, the Crenshaw District and Hancock Park, passes along Museum Row and ends at the venerable Central Library.

Along the route, hundreds of volunteers pass out drinks, snacks and encouragement. At the start, they are charged with clearing away piles of banana peels, paper cups, granola bar wrappers and garbage bags donned to ward off the early morning chill. Discarded sweatshirts are collected and swept into giant trash bags, then donated to charities. At the finish line, volunteers pass out medals, escort exhausted runners from the course and even massage aching legs and feet.

For many runners, the race was a chance to enjoy a Los Angeles they never see. "The city is just beautiful," said Joan Frieden, 60, of Pasadena, who finished in 5 hours and 35 minutes. "You really see the different ethnicities of the city because everyone comes out. It shows you what this town is all about."

But one teenage runner got another view of this town — one that shook her up but didn't throw her off course. Seventeen-year-old Erika Stern was parking her car at the Universal City Red Line station shortly after dawn so she and a friend could take the subway to the marathon's start when a gun-wielding man approached them and demanded her car. She gave him the keys and he drove off.

She called her parents, but wouldn't let them come and get her. "She was crying, really frantic," said her father, Mark Stern. "But all she could think of was that she had to get to the race on time." She even asked the police officers who took her crime report if they could ferry her to the starting point. They weren't able to, so she hopped onto the subway and made it in time for the race's start.

Her parents had planned to drive down and meet her at the 10-mile mark. "It never occurred to us that something like this could happen," Mark Stern said. "We're just glad she was so brave, and so smart."

A cross-country runner and student body president at El Camino High in Woodland Hills, Erika — who is only 4 feet 9 — took the interruption in stride. In fact, she bettered her marathon time from two years ago by almost 40 minutes, finishing in 4 1/2 hours. Credit the adrenaline rush.

Running the marathon almost made her forget her fright, she said. "Running makes me feel so good. There's nothing I'd rather do. And the marathon is such an amazing experience, I didn't want to miss it for anything. Now, I just hope they find my car."

Times staff writers Hemmy So, Jonathan Abrams, Kelly-Anne Suarez, Jason Felch and Julie Cart contributed to this report.

Congratulations JANFAN!! I'll be running my next marathon in October.

JANFAN4L,

you have inspired me. I used to only do 10K's. Maybe I will look into doing a marathon.

Congratulations!!!! You should be very proud, especially of your time! Good lawd.

M

I couldn't run 2.62 miles! My hat's off to you!!

Good luck! I'm sure your uncle will be with you the whole way. You can do it!!!