In early December, I started to feel like I wanted to try a marathon again. I’d done one nearly 10 years ago with a friend in San Diego. I hadn’t trained very well for it, but I was in decent shape because I’d been swimming a lot at the time. I figured I was in “good enough” shape to run a marathon. My friend and I crossed the 19 mile mark together, but it all went to crud after that for me. I started feeling muscle fatigue that I had never imagined before. My quads were so heavy and tired. I stopped to walk the water stations, which eventually turned into walking nearly a quarter-mile each time. My finish time went from a predicted 4:15 to an actual finish of 4:50.
This time I wanted to try a marathon where I’d trained properly for it. I had been solidly running for months when I amazingly won an entry into the LA Marathon for March 20, 2011. Jason and I drove down there and I was excited (and nervous) to try marathon #2. My goals for the race? Don’t poop my pants, run the whole distance, and possibly finish sub-4 hours. I figured the first one would be a gimme (although I did learn that port-a-potties are in HIGH demand on a race course and thus the first goal could have been more difficult than I’d imagined), and the second goal should be manageable. The last goal was a stretch. If I had a great day, I expected that a sub-4 hour finish would be a small possibility.
Compressing a long story into a short one…it rained 2.5 inches during the marathon. The wind was howling. Conditions sucked. The first drop of rain fell just as I took my second step in the race. Nearly 26.2 miles later, I had seen countless runners huddled in medical tents shivering from the cold. A road barrier got blown into a runner in front of me and took him off his feet at the finish line. I barely remember any of the sights from the race except for the rain-swollen road drainages that I tried to side-step. I do remember Jason and my family coming out to see me at 4 locations on the route. In the pouring rain, they came out to support me and it meant the world. I finished in 4:01, but it was a 3:58 if you take off the time for a potty break. So I’m gonna say that I met all my goals for the race and then some. I never expected to run a race like that in the pouring rain.
