Well, 26.2 miles is a long way. I knew that before yesterday’s L.A. Marathon, but that fact of just how long became very clear to me somewhere after about mile 13. I spent the last six months training for the race, and ran two 20-mile training runs among all of the other miles I put in, and at a certain point, the idea of the marathon’s actual distance stopped being very intimidating. Which is a good thing, I think. I’d done it before, and trained a lot, and felt very ready, but sometimes, things don’t go exactly according to plan.
Right around mile 19 or 20, I thought, “I never want to do this again.” That thought was extremely clear in my mind for the next four or five miles, until I turned the corner for the straightaway, finished the race, and thought “I have to do this again, and run the kind of race I trained for, and get this taste out of my mouth.”
The day began with a pretty good night’s sleep, a banana for breakfast, and a brisk drive from the west side to the 110 freeway. At which point traffic stopped, almost completely, and we realized that we didn’t have enough gas to sit in traffic for an hour (shades of Muddy Buddy 2006). We pulled off, drove around, asked a cop, navigated the streets that weren’t blocked off for the race, and finally found gas. We got back on the freeway toward the stadium, but it was even more congested than before, at which point I drew myself a map and hopped out of the car. It was about a mile and a half to the stadium, and I definitely made better time than anyone in a car.
As I got closer to the stadium, I saw more and bigger groups of people walking along the freeways and off-ramps, having done the same thing I did, letting whoever drove them brave the traffic while they actually got where they needed to go. The scene at the stadium was pretty crazy, between the thousands of runners and thousands of cars and buses dropping runners off. I waited in line for the restroom, eventually gave up, and with five or six minutes until the start, tried to find my pace group in our special corral. What I found was a long, tall fence, with no way to get in, and about two minutes before the gun went off, I finally just climbed it, as I’d seen others do, and landed somewhere near the 3:40 pace group. I thought I was in good shape, and would catch up my group, eventually, but I never did.
The start was fine, and I did mile 1 at 8:29, just exactly where I wanted to be. As the miles went on, and I gave up hope of tracking down my pace group, I was aware I was starting off a little too quickly, but it was tough to tell, and tough to do anything about it, especially since in all my long runs for the last six months, I’d been running with the group and relying on their pacing. I saw Janet, Eric, and Freddie in Silver Lake, saw my friend Dan from Santa Barbara walking on the sidewalk – he looked pretty surprised when I shouted out his name – spotted Brian in Hollywood, and high-fived Aimee when I reached Western Ave. Things were going well, but it was dawning on me just how much further there was to go.
I really began to tire around mile 13, which is not a great feeling, in a 26 mile race. Somewhere in Beverly Hills, around mile 15, I heard some familiar voices behind me, and was quickly overtaken by a dozen or so of my training buddies. It turns out I had been ahead of them the whole time, running way too fast, and they slowly reeled me in. I tried to keep up, but couldn’t, and soon started to have to take brief walking breaks, which became longer and longer as time went on. The next time I saw Aimee, in Century City, I wasn’t doing so well; I wasn’t hurt, but just had no energy. I was drinking water at every stop, but still felt thirsty, and by the time I reached Westwood, around mile 19, I just didn’t have what it took to run for more than a few steps at a time. Those miles in the early twenties were extremely long. I went from 8 and 9 minute miles to 12 and 15 minute miles near the end. The obvious, early hills weren’t bad, but the slight, extended inclines in Westwood and at the top of San Vicente were really killer, especially when you’re waiting for that “all downhill” part that people kept talking about
When the course finally turned downhill, and I felt a cool breeze coming off the ocean, somewhere in mile 24, I tried buckling down and running again. I pulled my cap down tight, stared at the painted lane line as it stretched ahead of me, and managed to get something going. My quads started screaming, probably because I hadn’t seriously used them in a few miles, but I ran through it, dug down, and finished the last mile back on pace, right at 8:29. It felt good to finish off a tough day with a good final effort, and though I started too fast and missed my goal time, I feel pretty accomplished, and am thankful to have finished respectably with no injuries. I’ll be back; half the reason I’m describing this in so much detail is to remind myself about what to do the next time around. Thanks to everyone who came out to see me, and especially to Aimee for the multi-stop cheering and for reminding me that there are a lot more things to be proud of than disappointed in about this race.
