The Road Less Traveled: LA Marathon March 21, 2010

26.2 miles, Los Angeles, CA, March 21st, 2010.....been there, done that. A couple weekends ago I went to LA and ran the Los Angeles Marathon with my training partner Mark, his soon to be son-in-law Sam and Sam's roommate Laura. This was to be Sam's first marathon and Laura's 2nd. We were all excited. Sam and Laura got to train in balmy LA while Mark and I gutted it out in another fun Wisconsin winter. We were trained, tanned (well some of us) and ready to race.

We flew to LA late on Friday night and went to the expo at Dodger Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Entrance to Dodger Stadium

Dodger Stadium is on the top of a hill, there is pretty much only one way in and one way out. This resulted in some interesting traffic on Sunday morning. The race filled to capacity, 25,000 runners. This was the biggest marathon Mark, Sam or Laura had ever done (I did Chicago with 45,000 runners in 2008) so we were expecting big things. We had been receiving emails everyday with important race information for us and our families and friends so we were getting lots of good information about the race. Dodger Stadium was nice. We got to walk about the stadium and take pictures of the field. It's amazing how green everything was there. Awesome to see.

Dodger Stadium

They had a nice big expo, lots of stuff to do and see. Picked up our packet and found out they ran out of some sizes of shirts, the shirts came in really small so everyone was sizing up. Huh. From there we checked out the start line and start coral.

From Left to Right: Sam, me, Mark at the start line

Seemed really small to push 25,000 runners through. And then we saw the porta's.....this was definitely going to be an issue race morning. Not nearly enough. Left Dodger Stadium and hit Hollywood for dinner and then home to rest the feet and mind for the next day.

Race day, beautiful weather, was supposed to get up to the mid 70's by the afternoon and was sunny (I guess it's always sunny in LA). Good stuff. We left the hotel at 5:30 and the drive was supposed to take about 20-25 minutes so we had plenty of time. We were doing great until 2 miles from the Dodger Stadium exit and then we were in a huge traffic jam and totally stopped. Not good. It took us about 45 minutes to go those next 2 miles. Again the problem, one way in and one way out for 25,000 people. Not a good plan. They race organizers encouraged people to park at the finish (there was not much parking at the finish) and shuttle to the start. Well the shuttles were stuck in the same traffic we were. Our rides were just going to go in and drop us off but it was still crazy. People were starting to panic and were getting out of their cars on the interstate and running or walking to the race start. We even saw people ducking behind bushes and trees doing to the bathroom alongside the freeway. This was crazy. Plus like I said before, Dodger Stadium is on a hill so to get there you have to climb the hill. I didn't want to waste extra energy doing this, as did our other racers so we waited the line out and eventually got in. The drop off was very smooth, just tough to get into the stadium for the drop off. As soon as we got into the stadium we headed for the porta's and the line was forever. They didn't have nearly enough porta's for all the people in the race. People were climbing a hill and going behind bushes. My luck is I would hurt myself doing that so I waited out the line. 45 minutes later we were all done and ready to head to the start line. The race was supposed to start at 7:20-7:25 (I saw different times on this the weeks leading up to the race as well) but it started about 7:45, at least our portion of the race did. This is a bit of a unique event, the women get a head start, this time it was around 18 minutes, on the men and the first individual to the finish line wins $100,000. Last year a man won but it has traded hands between the men and the women for the last six years. Kind of a cool thing. Because the start chute was so small we had to wait outside the chute until the start. Finally after almost 15 minutes of waiting (and hearing the kick off song 5 times) we crossed the start line.

Our first mile was around Dodger Stadium, up a hill then down a hill. We were passing people like crazy in the first few miles. Because we started so far back we were with racers that were a bit slower than us so we passed a ton of people. That feels good but it's also hard to get a rhythm dodging people all the time. This race had a band at every mile, water every mile and Powerade every other mile. The aid stations and volunteers were awesome. Even with that amount of runners they did a great job. They had lots of cups set up ahead but that goes quickly with 25,000 runners and they handled it well. Mark and I carried our hand held bottle with Gatorade in it instead of using the Powerade on the course, I prefer Gatorade. This worked out well. We were clipping along at a nice pace, a little slower than we had planned, but with the amount of people and with us dodging people all the time this pace was suiting us just fine. The first 6 miles are a loop around downtown and then we pass Dodger Stadium again before heading on Sunset Blvd into Hollywood, Beverly Hills and finally to Santa Monica and Ocean Ave for the finish. The first 6 miles turned out to be pretty hilly, and not just little bumps in the road but some pretty steep things that were at least 1/4 mile long. My heart rate was climbing with these hills and it getting warmer and I was having trouble keeping it down. Even when we would walk through a water station it still didn't want to stay down. I was getting worried and more concerned about it which wasn't helping to keep it down. So far all 4 of us were staying together, chatting and Mark and I were learning about the city as we passed things from Sam and Laura. We were having a blast. At about the mile 10 mark, Mark and I got separated from Sam and Laura. They were cruising along really good, my heart rate was high and we just lost them in a water station. They were just ahead of us but we didn't push to catch up to them. About mile 13.5 Mark and I passed Sam and Laura. Sam was walking as he was having a calf cramp. We were supposed to meet our support crew (Jeff, Sue, Michelle and Stephanie) at mile 14 to refill our water bottles with Gatorade and get more nutrition if needed.

Sue, Michelle and Stephanie Smith - Mile 14 Support Crew

(taken by Jeff, also in the support crew)

So we passed them and told them we would meet them just ahead. We caught our group and waited for Sam and Laura to get there.

Mark and I at mile 14

They never showed so Michelle called Laura's cell phone, they missed them and were going to keep going. Okay, so we headed out. I felt good for the next few miles, before that I was not feeling real spunky to say the least. About mile 17 I really started to fade. My heart rate kept getting higher and higher. I was doing okay on my nutrition (I was taking honey stingers and sucking on them, when one was done I would pop another one in and gatorade and water) but I was feeling a bit weak and my heart rate was high. So we walked a bit, got it down and then kept going. Mark was great, he just kept encouraging me to keep going and was okay with a few walk breaks. We would walk through the water stations which helped. Mentally I was doing okay but was warm and ready to be done. We kept this up until we ran into Sam and Laura again at mile 24. She looked great, Sam on the other hand was walking with major cramps in his legs. Based on the fact that we had his nutrition because he didn't stop by the crew it was either nutrition or fluids or a combination of both that was getting him. We told Laura to take off, there was a bet on the line with major money depending on how she finish, Sam was going to walk and Mark and I just wanted to get done. The finish down Ocean Ave was long (almost 2 miles) and really played with you mentally but we did it, even picked it up in the end and finished strong. We were happy to be done! Our time: 4:30:19 (4:30:18 for Mark because he pushed me out of the way to beat me....not really but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) didn't seem like a great time but now that the race is over and we saw the results we had an overall place of 5700 out of 22478 finishers. Not bad when you look at it that way! And a woman was first to the finish line and won the $100,000. Super cool!!

After the race

From Left to Right: Sam, me, Laura, Mark

Final thoughts on the race.......not well organized at all. If they are going to let 25,000 runners in, then they need to be ready for 25,000 runners, not 10,000. The start and finish need to be more accessible to spectators and racers. The stadium start and ocean finish are really cool but when it takes you 2 hours to get to the start and 2 hours to leave the finish it kind of takes some of the fun away from it all. Volunteers were awesome. Company was awesome. :) I wish I would have felt better, but I did accomplish my goals for the day, to practice my new nutrition, run an early season marathon and finish, and just have fun. Mark and I did get to mile 25 and Mark said to me, I like we forgot to look around for the last 25 miles like we planned, so next time I would like to make sure to focus on relaxing, having fun and enjoying the race. Glad to get one under my belt for the year and ready to improve in Green Bay.

Here are some other random pictures from the race: