I’m avoiding stairs today like I ran the Los Angeles Marathon yesterday. All I did were some weighted lunges and squats. Nothing awesome like hitting a 4:09 on my first marathon (go Alexis — she insists it’s her last — and Jorge!) or recording a huge PR (go Claudia!).
Even if I wasn’t running, I had to do my part as a runner. Plus, I live way too close to the course not to go out and cheer.
On Sunday morning, I woke up shortly before 7:30 feeling nervous and excited. I texted Alexis and offered a couple of tips. She seemed nervous but did fine. Mainly, don’t go out too fast and don’t trip over all the throw away sweaters.
I watched a bit of the telecast before making breakfast and heading out to Beverly Hills where Sean met me when I ran LA. It’s close and a good place to spectate since parking is easy.
A little before 9:30 we got to Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive (~mile 17), we waited for our runners with signs and cameras. Fifteen minutes before, I’d received a text message with 20K splits for Claudia, Jorge and Alexis. They were all in the 8-8:30 pace range. Claudia was the fastest, so I expected to see her come by first. I didn’t think it would be so tough to spot Claudia and Alexis since there were fewer women runners around. I was wrong.
We almost missed Claudia. I called as she passed by and she turned quickly. I’m not sure she recognized us, but she did look great. (She held on to the pace and finished in 3:42, a huge PR!)
We never saw Alexis even after I expected her to pass. I held her sign until I got the 30K split update. I’m still bummed I missed her. She would’ve loved our sign.
We missed Jorge as well. And he missed us too even though he looked for us. The corner where we were at had a good number of spectators, so we might have just blended in.
Last, I would have missed Marlene, as I turned to get more, but she spotted Sean. She also went on to earn a 12 minute PR. Go Marlene!
After I knew our friends had passed by, I got out the oranges and pretzels we’d packed. The oranges went by really fast, but the huge bag of pretzels lasted longer. We stayed until about 11:45. I think most of the runners at the point were well in to the 5+ hour range.
The runners were awesome and graciously thanked us for the snacks and loved Sean’s Nelson Muntz sign*. One woman told me, “You don’t know what this means.” Oh, I do. I love oranges during marathons and knew with warmer temperatures predicted folks would need the sodium from pretzels.
Congrats to the all the finishers! Can’t wait to join in on the fun again.
Alexis, if you ever want to do it again, I have a sign ready.
*I had sign envy. Sean got a lot of smiles, “ha ha’s!” and even a few runners stopping for pictures. One guy even recognized it from last year’s marathon or 2011. I never knew it was so popular since I haven’t done the cheering thing in a while.
