LA Marathon 2018

Last weekend I ran my second full marathon, the L.A.Marathon. My official time was 5:13:36 hours. My goal had been to run the marathon in under 5 hours but that didn’t happen unfortunately. However, I am happy to see that my time improved by 6 minutes from my first marathon in Long Beach back in October 2017.

I was originally supposed to start my training in late November/early December, but that didn’t happen! I’m fact, I ended up running only twice in December, one of those times was a half marathon which I had signed up for in November. In January I decided I need to start taking my training more seriously. I ran about 50 miles in January and 100 miles in February. One thing I did differently during this training was finally start running with a running group. I did a few runs with them, including the 17 mile run.

One thing that worried me was whether I would have enough energy and fuel for the marathon as a vegetarian. I had decided to take part in Meatless March, so by the time I ran the L.A.Marathon, I had gone nearly 3 weeks without eating any red meat, poultry, or seafood.

I was so nervous for the L.A.Marathon. I didn’t get much sleep the week before. I ran the San Diego Half Marathon with a time of 2:13 hours and felt pretty good. I also ran the L.A.Big 5k the day before the marathon. I was worried that these two races would hurt my time or that I would be overdoing it.

The night before the L.A.Marathon, I went to eat at a local Italian restaurant with my running group. I ended up eating spinach lasagna and ate three pieces of garlic bread. The food was good. I managed to go to sleep early, by 9pm, but unfortunately, I ended up waking up at 2:30am the day of the marathon. I was unable to go back to sleep because I was so anxious.

My journey to the Dodger Stadium took a while for me. I left my house at 430am and drive to the Atlantic Metro Station in East L.A. From there I took the gold line to the Union Station in Downtown L.A. Once I was there, I took a shuttle to the Dodger Stadium, where I met up with my running group. We started the marathon a little bit after 7am. 

I ran about 12 miles with one of my friends from the running group, but we got separated. From the beginning, I had some mild pain in my right calf. Luckily I wore a compression sleeve and kt tape on both calves, which definitely helped. 

I’ve driven around many different areas of Los Angeles before, but it’s a different thing to see everything while you’re running. We went through Downtown L.A., Chinatown, Hollywood, Santa Monica, and Brentwood to name a few. The crowd support was incredible! No matter where you ran, there were groups of people cheering you on! I definitely needed that especially in the last 4 miles of the marathon, when I felt like giving up. Hills are always tough,but it’s worse when the hills come after you’ve already been running for 20 miles.

There are many things in would change about my training for the next marathon. I would stick to my training plan and add more long runs. Between January and the L.A.Marathon, I only had one long run that was 17 miles. I guess the fact that I did multiple half marathons during this time helped me stay in shape and prepare for the marathon. I also need to add more hill training, speed training, and cross training.
As crazy as it sounds, I can’t wait to run the L.A.Marathon again next year. In fact, I’m already signed up. My goal is to run the marathon in 4:45-5:00 hours. The next race I’m training for is the OC Half Marathon, where my goal is to run a sub 2 hour half. I would be happy with the time of 1:58 . Will start training for this race tomorrow!