The LA Marathon - March 21 2010 - My First Marathon

My first marathon. Seven months of training led up to this fateful day that I could say I completed my first marathon.

Can you believe we were excited???

My  mom was down from Washington for the weekend, so my boyfriend was sweet enough to get up at 3:30 am to pick my mom up from her hotel at 4. My father stayed asleep in their hotel room. We drove up to the start of the race at Dodger Stadium, however, all the freeways were so backed up there was no way we were going to make it to the start on time. I didn't realize that the start to this race would take well over an hour, and we'd have been fine... So we did what everyone else was doing... we got out of our cars and walked down the freeway to Dodger Stadium.

There were no D-Tags for this race. The timing chip was actually on the back of your bib.  I don't mention this much, but I actually work for the City of Los Angeles, Department of City Planning. It was really special getting to run though my city, and especially where I work and play. Anyone who's a Dodger fan, or has been to Dodger stadium, can understand the next paragraph. 

The first mile of the marathon was 1.5 times around Dodger stadium. This would have been fine, except for they had the song "I Love L.A." on loop. I never said we were fast runners, my mom and I... So we had to hear that song plenty of times before we escaped Dodger stadium. This is changing for 2011, I hear, with merely a half loop around. Then we got to run down the hill to sunset. Anyone who's parked at Dodger stadium can only imagine how liberating this felt!

That big building in the background is my work.

The first mile went so fast! Ok, so it took 13 minutes!  But before we knew it we were in front of my work, Los Angeles City Hall! We ran down main, and up to our first hill, on 1st street. There were a great group of Taiko drummers kickin' out beats to motivate us up that hill that I hate already from short lunch breaks. We did the first 6 miles in just over an hour. 

As we went though Echo Park a man held up a sign that said "Mile 7 Silverlake: Beware the Hipsters" I wish I'd taken a picture of it. My mother was doing so great! I know I slowed her down... though, it provided great photo opportunities. I think she really liked Echo Park Lake! It was very scenic.

There were so many spectators all through the course. It was amazing. It was hard to even stop to take walk breaks because so many people were cheering us on. By mile 9 we were really digging our walk breaks though, and people were still super supportive. It started to really warm up at this point too. I'm used to the LA heat but my Mom isn't. She's faster than me though, so it balanced out.

There were some women standing outside of their Silverlake homes in their pajamas holding coffee cups. I secretly hated them... but whatever. On we went.



There is a part of Sunset Blvd, right before you turn onto Hollywood, that has a big mural by a local artist named Cache. His art is chickens. I love the chickens. I think this was around mile 8.  Here are some of Cache's chickens we ran by during the LA Marathon:

Water stop at mile 9, Time to walk down Hollywood Blvd. While many of the runners were ahead of us, and cleanup was underway, there were still plenty of volunteers out handing us water.

They gave us so much water, in fact, that we were able to rehydrate ourselves both inside and out. I never actually touched my water bottles on my nathan hydration belt. Unless there are few water stops or it is a hot day, I think I'll save it for training runs.

Hollywood Blvd was a trip, for sure. Especially when you get to Hollywood and Vine. There are movie stars and wannabes cheering you on, people drunk at 9am or whatever time it takes you to get 11 miles in, but everyone is cheering for you. Of course, this allowed us to make a break for it. Hollywood turns left onto Orange, where I park when I go to the Hollywood Bowl, and we run past an In-N-Out. Anyone who ran the LA Marathon can tell you where at mile 11.78 of the Marathon that In-N-Out, which was CLOSED, was. We wanted fries well done. We ran instead.

You get back onto Sunset from Hollywood for a few miles, and right when you're past the Chinese Theater and about to turn off Sunset you run by the famous Whiskey a Go Go. This is where The Doors got there start and made it big. This was one of Jim Morrison's favorite places to play. It was one of my favorite things to run by. There were still spectators too! 14 miles down!

After running by the Whiskey we ran into Beverly Hills. Mile 17 was Rodeo Drive. Still, many spectators! A police officer grabbed my hand during a walk break and said "you're doin' good honey! Good job Dianasaur!" There were some people up for early shopping though, in their fancy pants high heels, grossed out by the sweaty runners in their paths... "what is going on?" I heard one unknowing fashionable male say from out of his prison of a scarf.

Mile 18 was a nice little jaunt through Century City. The firemen were out in full force supporting us! We'd slowed down to 4.4mph, from our starting speed of 4.6! Turtles. The LAFD had a hydrant open and were spraying people down in a little cool zone. I ran through it once. My mom turned around for a second spray and ran through it twice. We needed it too. It was really getting warm! We'd ran 18 miles! Holy moly! So what if we took a lot of walk breaks. I was really surprised that while, even with all the walking we were doing (and I won't lie, there was a lot) we still had been running over 2/3s of the race.

That was until we got to mile 20... Mile 20 was Westwood and the VA hospital. This hill has since been named Purple Heart Hill. My mom started getting hot and dizzy going up this hill, so we slowed down, down, down. Just past mile 21 was another water stop. We drank plenty of fuel. I told her having to go to the bathroom is better than passing out! Chugalug. Cool off. Keep going. The turn onto San Vicente was spectacular. After all the time walking up that killer hill, we're suddenly on a beautiful green street headed towards Santa Monica! 4 miles to go? We can do that.

At this point the 6 hour pacer caught up to us. The 5:45 pacer I so wanted to stay with blew past us on the hill... but I kept telling my mom "we gotta stay ahead of that guy!" For the rest of the race, I kept looking behind us! At one point, we'd lost him!

Did I mention all the samples along the way? At one of the mile markers they handed us coconut water. I loved it, my mom hated it. They had been handing out samples of any and everything! Milk, water, food... It was insane. Somewhere on San Vicente they were giving out Sunny D. So gross! My mom loved it, but I spit it out and wanted water so bad I busted open my nathan belt just to wash my mouth out!

We never once hit a wall. We got tired at mile 22. Mile 23 we stopped to try to go to the bathroom. Nothing happened though. I guess we were perfectly hydrating! Did I mention it was downhill from here? All the spectators... People who'd finished.... people on their bikes... they all made a point of telling us "IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE!" and we needed to hear it every single time!

At mile 24 I just didn't have it in me to run at all. We'd went from a run walk at the start, but at this point I only had walk left in me. So, we walked. Mile 25 turns onto Ocean. It was foggy. It felt so nice! We needed the cool. It gave us the little boost we needed. I looked behind me one last time and saw the 6 hour paces coming close. I knew what I needed to do.  When I could see the finish line, I said "lets run" and we did. Our finish was 5:58:42. Not too shabby for my first marathon!

Unfortunately, the finish line festival was so packed we couldn't get to it. We didn't care at this point though. A nice finisher took our picture at the pier and we walked all the way up Pico down 4th to rose... in Venice, to get away from the horrible traffic! I heard they'll be fixing this for the 2011 race also, having the finish closer to San Vicente so the parking and festival aren't so crowded. We'll see. I'm signed up for it!

 

Some famous people ran the Marathon too... but my favorite: We ran with a goonie!

Yep, Sean Astin! Who cares about Shia LaBeouf, Gordon Ramsay, or Audrina Patridge... whoever they are... We ran with a Goonie! He finished in 5:16! Pretty impressive.