Los Angeles Marathon: Just a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Steve Woo (Palo Alto Run Club Newsletter)
There was quite a bit of Diana Ross
and her Supremes heard along the course of the LA Marathon this year, but it’s Aretha
Franklin’s “Respect” that best describes my battle with LA. It had been eleven years since I last ran the LA
Marathon, and I figured that I should go ahead and run it as a training run for this
year’s Boston Marathon in April, since the course literally runs through the backyard
at USC. This, at least, was my
well-intentioned goal when I went to bed the night before.
However, on race day, I turned around and did a complete 180.
While cruising on an eerily-empty 110
freeway on my way to the start, I started thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if I
could qualify for next year’s Boston Marathon (i.e. 2002) and get that outta the way
today?” Unfortunately, I failed to
account for the sorry fact that thus far in my training, I had only completed one long run
over 20 miles, incorporated no speed work, had only logged in one week of mileage over 40
miles, and was substituting alot of cross-training for running, to save some stress on my
knees. As it would turn out, 3-hour workouts
on the elliptical trainer and hour-long aqua-running sessions would not translate into a
fast marathon.
At my eventual point of breakdown,
all I could hear was the LA Marathon taunting, ala Aretha, “All I want you to do for
me is show a little respect. Just a little
bit, ooh, just a little bit, ooh, just a little bit…….sock it to me, sock it to
me, sock it to me, sock it to me.….” And
then at some point along the course, someone was blasting the Supremes crying what was,
for me at least, an ineffective, touchy-feely, pick-me-up--“Ain't no mountain high
enough, ain't no river wide enough, ain't no valley low enough……” Diana Ross apparently has never run this course,
because this was one butt-wrenchingly hilly course. In
fact, the race organization is considering changing the course to accommodate faster
times.
Expecting mass gridlock and an ugly
parking situation, I arrived over two hours before the start of the race, only to find an
empty parking lot. Perfect—this would
give me plenty of time to stress over the torrential downpours that were forecasted by
none other than an inaptly-named local weatherman, Dallas Raines. Fortunately, the Angels of the City of Angels were
kind, and no precipitation ever materialized. But
just in case, I wore two strategically-designed kitchen garbage bag “t-shirts”
underneath a strategically-chosen USC t-shirt, just to give the ladies of Troy some
thrills and giggles.
The starting area was none too
eventful—very organized, and no waits at the portapotties, though the smart money
went to the well-equipped bathrooms at a nearby hotel.
After stopping for a free, but rushed, massage, I made my way to the main
pack of runners behind a sign that said “12 minute milers.” “OK, that’s not gonna work if I want to
run around 3:00.” Moving forward,
I staked out a spot from where it took about 2 minutes to reach the actual start line.
Mayor Riordan and Jacky Joyner-Kersee
were on hand for the official start. It was
a pretty pleasant first mile due to LA’s wide boulevards, which eliminate a lot of
the violent pushing and shoving that normally occur at these running functions. After only a mile into the run, it started feeling
like I was in a sauna, so I had to wrestle with myself to shred and shag the makeshift
garbage bag undergarments beneath my t-shirt. For
the most part, I was feeling pretty good. As
usual, my knee was on my mind the entire time, and I was again blessed with another
marathon with nada problems. Well, actually
there’s my whole problem with Aretha, which brings me back to showing a little
respect for the marathon—not an issue to be taken lightly, as I learned the hard
way……
OK, so I didn’t taper for this
marathon, and had a pretty intense quad/hamstring weight session on Thursday, after an 8
mile run. This was, afterall, initially
supposed to be just another training run for next month’s Boston. My legs were feeling tight and heavy on Saturday,
and it got progressively worse during the marathon. In
the back of my mind, I knew I would eventually crash, but once you’ve heard those
shrieking women at Wellesley, you’ll do anything to qualify for Boston, no matter how
stoopid. Even so, I kept pushing to maintain
the 7-minute pace I was running, and by the halfway mark, I clocked about 1:28. Excellent, I could afford to run a positive split
with 12 minutes to spare. Piece of cake. NOT.
Somewhere after mile 13, we were
running through the well-to-do Hancock Park residential area (it’s not 90210, but
ritzy neverthenonetheless), then my mind started playing tricks on me, and I was thinking,
“Torri, Brenda, Brandon, and Dylan would never run a marathon. Look at all this wealth--kids handing out oranges
purchased at $5.25/pound on Rodeo Drive—oops, hey kid, you dropped one, there goes
your allowance for the hour. Do the upper
crust run marathons? If I were rich, I could
pay someone to run and qualify me for Boston.” Incidentally,
I did grab an orange slice, while trying to block out thoughts of where the kid’s
hands had been, and chewed off the flesh in one bite, only to end up with bits of orange
stuck between my teeth. Then I began to look
for the volunteers with the dental floss. Oral
hygiene and temporary insanity aside, I continued to push.
However, somewhere after mile 18, my quads/hamstrings were shot, my pace
took a sharp fall, and I knew my qualifier was outta the picture now.
So then, I figured I could at least
take it easy and chill, figuratively speaking—but, no, it literally started getting
chilly and a breeze began to pick up. Now, I
was struggling to keep going at a shuffle, but at mile 20….CRAP, I passed my
classmate Ted outside his apartment, who cheered the obligatory “Lookin’ good,
keep it up!” Seeing him there was a
sorry reminder that final exams were starting in 4 days.
Alright, so in order to maintain his perception that I was lookin’ good
and just happy to be alive, I kept running until I was out of sight and
then………um……started walking, at which point I realized how sore I
really was. On a positive note, this gave me
some time to finally get rid of all that orange lodged between my teeth.
OK, so apparently I went out faster
than I should have. That’s OK, if Jeff
Galloway can do his gallowalking thing, maybe there really is something to it? So, I started up a jog again for 3 minutes, then
walked for 1 minute, 3 minute jog, 1 minute walk, 3 minute jog, which eventually turned
into 2 minute jogging segments, blah blah blah. But
then my left calf started cramping, and I couldn’t maintain a jog for much more than
a minute at a time, or for even half a mile at a time.
Aaargh. So this little
walk-jog game continued for the remaining 6 miles, while well-intentioned spectators
cheered and urged me to keep running, oblivious to the sight of blood curdling up and down
the veins of my left calf. “I'm never
gonna make it to the finish!”
When I finally saw the Mile 26 banner
ahead of me, I was able to maintain my cramped shuffle onto the final stretch to the
finish line but, adding to the drama, my calf kept cramping intensely with about 100
meters left, so I had to stop and stretch it out--to the absolute horror of the crowds. You could sense their unease by the sudden drop in
the level of decibels of their cheering. I
whined to myself, “Aw, c’mon, give a guy a break, this really huuuuurts!” But, God bless them all, they let out a huge roar
when I managed to work back into my shuffle to the finish.
Final time was 3:20—10 minutes
short of what was pretty much an unrealistic target given my conditioning and inadequate
preparation, but hopefully respectable enough for Aretha.
Take it from this humbled runner, who now has to go back to remedial
training, show the marathon a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T and watch your performance soar.
Waitaminute, what’s that? Do you hear it?
Sounds like giddy shrieking and girls fainting. It’s a bird, it’s a plane….nuh-uh,
it’s Wellesley!!!!
Smell ya later LA. Onward to Hopkinton.