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My Morning at the LA Marathon

Once upon a time, I thought I would be running the LA Marathon today. Actually as Billy reminded me a little bit ago, I’d actually mentioned running a there-and-back (i.e. double) LA Marathon today. Today is the six month anniversary of my surgery and I thought it would be a pretty great way to prove (mainly to myself) how quickly I was able to come back. But as I’ve written here ad nauseam, my spring training plans didn’t work out exactly as hoped.

So, instead of running the marathon today, I did the next best thing: spectating and cheering and supported those who were out there running.

First off for any of my readers who weren’t in LA today, let me set the scene: As of 5:30am, the forecast for the day read something like 90-100% of rain, heavy at times, temperatures in the low 50s, and wind gusting up to 25mph. Sweet! But contrary to what Reggie Bush might think (tweet from March 20 at 11am), runners don’t stay home when it’s gonna rain.

It didn’t start actually raining this morning until right about 7:30, which was conveniently the start time for the race. Well goody.

I started my morning at 6:45 with a 5.5 mile run from home to The Pablove Foundation HQ at Sunset and Lucile, just before mile 8 on the course.

I hung out there with the Pablove team, waiting mostly patiently for the runners to start coming by. Standing outside in the cold and rain, cooling down after the first run of the morning, I started getting really cold. But then racers started streaming by which made it easy to forget any cold I was feeling! First were the wheelchairs and handcycles (who started first):

Then the elite women (next wave):

Then the elite men (who started 17-or-so minutes after the women):

I waited at Pablove until Jimmy and Tyler came by, at their blazing fast 6:30-something pace. I jumped in and ran with them for about two miles, which was just about as long as I could last at that speed:

At mile 10, I stopped and waited for Kate. She came by with Travis and Justin (?) and I jumped in with them for a couple miles at a somewhat more reasonable 7:15-or-so pace.

A little past mile 12, I stopped again to wait for the next friends to come by – Colin and Kristin weren’t too far behind. So I jumped in with them for a few miles through West Hollywood:

At around mile 15.5, I stopped again and this time waited just a minute or two for Billy and Sam. By now, the constant-and-sometimes-hard rain had become much of just a constant, hard rain, so I couldn’t take any more pictures. I’d also already run over 13 miles on the day, which was more than I’d planned and I still had to go at least 2 to get home. So I only ran with them for a few hundred meters before stopping to wait for Pete. When Pete came, I ran with him for about a half mile before turning for home.  Running for home I ran across many semi-flooded streets, I felt like a little kid jumping directly into the puddles. Credit to my awesome DryMax socks for keeping my feet comfy and blister-free all day long!

Even though while I was out there I was mostly wishing I was actually running it, I made the most of it and had a blast today. In all, I ran about 16.6 miles.  Congrats to all my friends who braved the rain and kicked ass!