Los Angeles Marathon XXIII - RunMarathon

First 14 miles went really well. I spent quite a bit of time high fiving kids (and adults) on the course and basically I had a great time. By mile 14 though i just didn't feel good - I mean I had run up to 22 miles before but I think I had taken too much advil on the course and basically couldn't get my stomach to settle. By about mile 16-17 I told my friend Stef (who looked good again although she too had a bad patch at mile 12-14) to go ahead without me. I ended up walking a couple of times so I could drink properly but it was a hard race for me. I was so happy to see the finish line I could have cried (and almost did). Overall I had a fun marathon - my first - and I think with some tweaks I would do another one. (PS I followed the silver plan 20 week marathon training and I do think it left me pretty well prepared for the race - but see below for a couple of things I would do differently).

Practice taking advil while running (my own stupid fault I took advil befor and during the race and my stomach just couldn't handle it since I had not needed to take any while running previously).
During my training I would split my long runs (20-22 mile runs) with doing half on the tread and half outside. Although this fitted well with my schedule (and also because my friends were not wanting to run over 16 miles with me) I think it had an impact on how my legs were on race day - got some joint stiffness going on. Otherwise I think I didn't have my best day - I had felt better on a long 22 mile training run that on race day but sometimes that is just what happens. I did meet my goal for my first marathon (goal was between 4 - 4 and 1/2 hrs) but I think I was a little down by not being able to finish with Stef (who did a PR of 4:15 - her best marathon by 20 minutes!)

Walked around - drank gatorade.


Advil perhaps, maybe too much treadmill running - other than that I did the best I could on the day.


Thanks to all the many volunteers and the crowd. Also thanks to Deena, Jim and especially Carol for coming out to support me!