There I am. March 21, 2010. Marathon #3. 4 hours, 51 minutes. Not too shabby!
At this moment, I’m 99% sure I will take on the challenge of completing my 4th LA Marathon in March 2011. My first marathon was in March 2006. I was supposed to train and run with a friend whom ended up getting injured and was unable to run. I quickly found a training team that met on the beach every Saturday. I had a great experience with them (except for that one week where I stupidly wore new shoes on an 18 miler and was in pain before we were halfway done and then boo-hooed at the end). Each week we’d pass by the famous pier, run down Ocean Avenue and through the streets of Santa Monica and Venice, and back to the beach – passing the famous Muscle Beach along the way. People actually work out there! I’ll always remember soaking our aching legs in the icy Pacific upon completing each run. That year will always be written in the books as when I lost my “marathon virginity”. Nice, ha? That’s not my term. I can’t claim it. But it is pretty clever! After completing the first, I knew I would run one again. A few years passed by, however, simply because I did not want to drive my lazy butt down to Santa Monica every week from the valley. Ironic isn’t it? Too lazy to drive an extra 20 minutes on the freeway but not too lazy to run for an hour and a half on what’s known as a “short run”.
2 years ago I found a team that runs for charity. I joined them and I’ve never looked back. I ran my 2nd and 3rd marathons with the National AIDS Marathon Training Program. Both years were absolutely fabulous! Saturdays would not be the same without Griffith Park, Coach Scott, and my homies. I haven’t seen much of my 2009 pace group but we’re in touch. I hope to run with them again someday. My 2010 pace group was just as wonderful. You get to know your people pretty well when you spend countless hours running the streets of Los Angeles/Burbank/Glendale/NoHo/Toluca Lake with them every week. After completing the marathon 6 months ago, my pace group kept training together on Saturdays for another marathon (or a half in my case) in June and we just completed yet another half marathon together in Disneyland on September 5th! I will remember these guys forever and hope to run again with them many more times in the future.
So here I am in the middle of September and I’m tired and unsure about signing up for the 3rd consecutive year. But I probably will. I’m pretty sure I’d miss it too much. I didn’t experience much marathon depression this year since my pace group kept meeting throughout the summer for a run every week. It does happen, though. Once the marathon is over there’s a mini depression stage we all go through. Thankfully it doesn’t last long!
I got a bit of a boost in motivation last Sunday morning. Yeah, I’m tired, but maybe I will join again… During the Disneyland Half Marathon my pace group ran in together, I ran into the director of our training program, Kerry. We were chatting and he told me he’d like me to come by the park the following week to be interviewed for the new promotional video (moi?). We are rebranding. The training program will now be called T2 (Team to End AIDS). So that’s where I was when I had a mental visit from Matt Foley. It was a little strange since I didn’t know any of the runners there – that group is currently training for a marathon in Hawaii. But just being there gave me a bit of a boost and excitement began to grow for the LA training that will begin in just a few weeks. After the runners took off for their 16 mile training run, I stayed behind with a few other interviewees. My small t-shirt actually looked more like a nighty on me. But lucky for me, the nice boys who watch Project Runway helped me fold it up and cinch it in the back to make it look (as I was told)… hot. Ha! Right, time will tell... Anyway, first up: me. Great, so I don’t get to watch some other sucker first and see what it’s all about? Oh well. I was as nervous as a turkey at Thanksgiving but I got through the interview without tears, so hey, that’s an accomplishment. There were so many things I wished I would have said but didn’t think of them until I got home. (I blame it on the reporter. If he'd have had better questions, he could have gotten a lot more out of me). Isn’t that the way these things usually go, though? Oh well. I answered his questions and shared as much as I could all while being put on the spot, quite literally.
So why did Kerry want me to be interviewed? Huh? Well… if I make the cut, you’ll see and hear more about the “story” of my family and why T2 means what it does to me. When it is edited by the professionals, ready and posted, I’ll be sure to share.
Now. I just need to know who’s with me? Who’s in? 2011? Am I alone? Anyone? Anyone? …Bueller?
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