40th Anniversary of Los Angeles Marathon

Eagle Rock Run Club racing singlet, heat pressed courtesy of ERRC team captains <3

HELLO LOS ANGELES.

I’m so glad that I get to run a high-energy race after my experience at Ventura two weeks ago. Man, that was a doozy.

Read my Ventura Marathon post-race recap here. Really, go read that. Thank you to everyone who supported me for that race.

This will be my third LAM. LA is still my favorite marathon. I think Marine Corps is my second favorite. I really like the bigger races because they’re so high energy. And, LA is my favorite because I get to run through so many local run club cheer stations and see familiar faces along the way. It makes my heart happy.

I shared in Eagle Rock Run Club’s discord that I’d love to help marathoners get to the finish line and hit their time goals. Honestly, I felt like volunteering for this because of how shitty I felt coming in slower than I had wanted at Ventura. That feeling sucked.

I can confidently say I’ll finish under 4:30 barring some freak accident or injury. So, we’re going to come in 4:21-4:30. The group wants to beat Ethan Hawke’s marathon time of 4:22, which I’m slightly less confident about given I just ran a 4:06/4:08 (watch/clock) and don’t feel fully recovered yet… I ran SF at 4:15 for “fun” though - and it is a MUCH harder effort out there, IMO - so I think I’ll be fine to bring this group in around 4:20.

Since Tom kicked ass and earned a 3:45 at Ventura, he’s going to cruise LAM with me and ensure our little pace group gets in under 4:22. We’re planning to do negative splits, conservative start - so the first few miles of downhill will have an enforced speed limit.

We’ll need to run slightly faster than 9:30 for most of the downhill and flat sections to be able to slow at aid stations and hills.

For the first time ever, I purchased a pace band from findmymarathon.com (not sponsored) to keep pace. LOL - I care much more about hitting the pace for this because it’s not for me.

What’s kind of cool about this being the first marathon I run kind of for others, is that this year’s slogan is “Together LA” because our amazing community really came together during the fires to help each other out, and keep each other going. I’m excited to run this marathon and keep that energy close every mile.

More to come…