LA Marathon 2011- Not even Oprah could help me

So last week James Gibson, Tyler Rex, Devin Dickson and myself embarked on an epic journey. For the last 4 months we have been training for the LA Marathon. And last weekend, along with about 23,500 other people, we gathered at Dodger's Stadium for the start of the race in the wee hours of the morning.

The start was crazy. All of these people jammed into starting corrals. It was pretty cold too, luckyly I had gone to the thrift store to buy a sweatshirt and sweatpants for me to wear at the start of the race, the plan being to take them both off and throw them to the side of the road as I warmed up. I took off the pants as the race started, and the sweatshirt about 2 miles into the race.

We all had been watching the weather because it had been projected to rain, the night before weather.com said there was a 90% chance of rain. Devin had said that all he wanted was for it to not rain until after the race started. He got his wish, but probably should have wished for something different. It literally started raining as we crossed the starting line. There were so many people that we didn't cross the line until almost 10 minutes after the official start. And we were not really able to start runing normally for like 2 miles because of all the people. But I loved it. There was so much excitement and energy. And the rain actually was perfect for the first 6 miles, it felt great (temporarily). From about an hour into the race until the end it was pouring and windy. It rained over 2 inches that day. I can definitely say the weather effected my race outcome.

My goal was to finish in 4 hours and 30 minutes, which would have required a 10 minute/mile pace. A few days prior to the race I had found out that Oprah ran a marathon in 4:30, so I HAD to at least beat Oprah (which became my new and improved goal). I did great at pacing myself for the first 12 or so miles, and I felt good. So good infact that I started going faster, which ended up being a bad idea. However, miles 12 till 18 were amazing. I was flying and felt great. At the time I worried that I would pay for it toward the end of the race. Then at mile 15 Heather, Shira, and Amy were waiting under their umbrellas to chear us on. It was awesome seeing them and that pumped me up even more.

Mile 18 was the start of some real pain. My iPod shuffle stopped working (probably because of all the rain) which didnt help because the day before I'd put together an ultimate marathon pump up mix. For the last 8 miles I was able to run a consecutive mile maybe 2 times. Cardiovascularly I was fine, but my legs were so tight. And I was really cold. I was actually on pace to get my goal time up until 23 miles, but those last 3.2 miles I was probably doing around 13 minute miles. At one time I had to bend over to tie my shoe and could barely do that. I just kept repeating to myself "Have to beat Oprah".

I finished in 4:40:58, 11 minutes off of my goal. Overall I was not too disappointed, given the conditions I felt okay. After finishing I was in a sort of a daze. I hadn't seen Heather or anyone else anywhere. And it was then that I realized how cold I was. I could not stop shivering, and the mylar "blankets" they were handing out did nothing for me. The whole scene looked like a natural disaster had hit. People everywhere looked horrible and cold, people were crying and confused all over the place. It took like 90 minutes to eventually find Heather and everyone else. And she was not too happy. She was as cold and drenched and had been worried that something had happened to me. But all was okay and we eventually ate some Panda express which was awesome.

I am glad I did it, and am okay with the results. I wish the mess at the end had been better organized, but the weather was really the problem and not much could be done about that.

So yes, Oprah, you win this round. But I doubt it rained 2 inches with 20 mph winds during your race.