RUNDown: 2011 LA Marathon (#8)

Summary: Cold Rain. Wind. Awesome run!

This is my #8 lifetime marathon, #5 in my year of 8 marathons.

 I had been checking the weather and it was clear by Expo-day that the weather was going to be bad. The hope was the worst of the storm would be hitting after we finished.



A recap on our plans: for me, an even pace (as I did in Surf City) with my goal of learning more about judging proper pacing, having a good time, and finishing strong. My estimate of a good finishing time was 4:15 (a 9:42 m/m pace) which is 18s faster than Surf city. Seemed quite reasonable and hopefully a quick recovery for S2S on 4/10.

As for my brother-in-law, Charlie, he had aced his training and was targeting 8:30. This scared me a bit but at some point you have to let people do what they want to do...he's youngish (42) and a natural runner so it seemed like the worst thing that would happen is he'd get a bit of a nasty slowdown at the end but still have a nice very respectable time.


The day before we went over to OSH to get some cheapo rainsuits in case we had to sit in the corrals for a long time (to hold a spot). They don't cost much and come with jacket AND pants and keep you much warmer than the garbage bag method.

The forecast was for 50F, 15+ mph winds and heavy rain big possibility..so learning from my trail marathon experience (where I really needed my jacket after mile 20) I knew I'd run with one as well as some gloves that I could stow in it's pockets.


I managed to convince Charlie that having some kind of light jacket during the race was good insurance against hypothermia. Charlie was loath to wear anything other than a shirt, even an unused jacket tied around his waist.  He was not afraid of the rain..he'd run a 14 miler in it... but I showed him my GreenLayer california dreamin jacket and how light it was, did not flutter in the wind and could be wrapped up and tied around the waist and be pretty minimal impact. 

And I told him of my worry that it would be really cold like my trail race. So, in the end he bought a nice stylish ultra thin jacket as well as a hat.


In retrospect, jackets probably prevented us both from very ugly DNFs.

The day before the race was the 80th birthday celebration for my father-in-law (also Charlie's father-in-law) and we enjoyed some wonderful carb-loading with pasta bolognese and a crunchy-style meringue dessert! Yummy. 


We got up at 3am(!) to drive to the finish area parking at the Civic Center and take the 4am shuttle buses. I had read on marathon guide about how screwed up everything was last year and saw that several people had said if you take the shuttles and take them early there was no problem...


Driving to Santa Monica the rain was light and on an off a bit....we parked right on the ground floor near the entrance/exit and walked to the shuttle and caught one right away.

Charlie at Dodger Stadium about 5am?

When we got to the Stadium we discovered they were letting us sit in the stadium..and there are a lot of seats that are under cover from the rain so that was great.


It was cold. Even in our rainsuits and with our jackets on under it was just barely tolerable without shivering. Plenty of people were shivering that had less clothing.


Luckily as more and more people crowded in over the next two hours the body heat got better at keeping everybody warm.

bleachers fill up..jumbotron playing, flags moving

The started showing a marathon promo movie on the Jumbo-Tron to give us something to look at which was nice, but it was only about 1/2 hr long and so after a while you'd see it all. I really like the CG graphics movie of the race course.


Notice the flags ..by the time the race started they were flying almost straight out, probably a 15 mph wind (?)


We were able to use the bathrooms in stadium which was nice. Eventually, I decided to make my last visit but it was too crowded in the stadium so I went outside to the port-a-lets. When I came back and got into the hallway I discovered the place had become a zoo in the last 30 minutes...you could barely move.

The start..looking forward

Rather than go back in I figured Charlie would get to his start corral one way or the other (he did) and so I  headed to the seeded corral..I was in "C" because of my 4:06 at SFM. There was a huge backup because of unseeded people trying to just get in there (some because they were just clueless, some trying to sneak in) but they were all pointed to the other corral and us vets all got in eventually.


While waiting I spoke with  a women named Yoko...she was visiting from Japan and  was wearing a "thank you for your support" banner. We had a moment of silence to remember what happened in Japan (as well as the anthem). 


I ditched my rainsuit about 10 minutes before the start. I could not get over how many people there were.

The start, looking back (!

This was a BIG marathon...biggest I'd ever tried.


There were 27,000 signed up and only ~23,000 people at the start. Little did we know that only 19,866 would actually finish.


The race started and it was crowded..I could only do an 11:00 m/m pace for the first 1/2 mile or so.  I took a shot of the first turn out of the stadium onto Sunset Ave.

Alas too blurry to be really useful but it gives you an idea of the crowding at this point. So far we didn't have any rain..it had been mostly holding off ...just occasional short dumps.





For the first mile or so there was crowd dodging..but actually not that bad..11:00 pace for the first .5, then sped up to get my average down to 9:39 on the garmin.

The early part of the course hits a big hill at Disney hall

Split	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Avg Cadence	Elev+	Elev-
1	1.00	09:39	157	88	55	106
2	1.00	08:50	135	89	17	174
3	1.00	09:24	129	88	40	32
4	1.00	09:17	129	87	35	36
5	1.00	10:26	128	84	83	50

climbing to Disney Hall (mile 4.5?)

 

looking back on the Disney Hall hill

Echo lake..about 10k mark, see the runners?

Approaching mile 9

Split	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Avg Cadence	Elev+	Elev-
6	1.00	10:18	128	86	97	33
7	1.00	09:13	132	88	30	61
8	1.00	09:33	127	87	41	73
9	1.00	09:44	131	87	72	0
10	1.00	09:46	130	87	0	24

Julie and Phil, about mile 10-11?

At about mile 10, I was approached from behind and asked what pace I was running by a young couple running together.

I showed them my 4:15 pace band and they laughed and guessed that was my pace..they had been following me!

I pulled forward and took this burry shot..I really need to get a better camera for low light conditions, sigh.

(Hard to stop dead to take a shot in the middle of crowds of runners..)

me, early in race

 was keeping to my pace pretty well at this point knowing that there was a long long way to go. On larger hills, I would break in to a power walk for 20-30s to easy the stress on my legs and make sure I was saving some for later. 

But I wasn't sandbagging..I did keep my average pace right were I wanted it to be..the splits at the mile markers vs my pace band were the final judge of this. The garmin was showing me about 5s faster than my actual splits and this was good to know...i.e. I needed to run showing 9:37 for my average pace to do a 9:42 overall (4:15 marathon). After some hills the seconds digit of my average might pop up to an 8 (9:38) and I would then press a little bit faster to drive it back down to a 7.

Split	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Avg Cadence	Elev+	Elev-
11	1.00	09:23	130	87	52	49
12	1.00	09:40	129	86	33	76
13	1.00	09:47	130	86	27	0
14	1.00	09:44	132	86	60	18
15	1.00	09:25	127	87	0	186

Movie anybody? (about mile 12.5)

Crescent Heights Blvd ..about 13 miles

Looking back at 13 miles

 

Split	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Avg Cadence	Elev+	Elev-
16	1.00	09:27	130	88	7	18
17	1.00	09:46	135	86	50	0
18	1.00	09:28	135	87	32	29
19	1.00	09:31	137	87	33	49
20	1.00	09:26	135	87	24	30

Miles 16 to 20 were the most difficult of the entire race. I was holding my pace but at any time felt that this might all evaporate and I would start slowing down despite my best efforts. Whenever I felt like I was slowing down (my cadence would slow and I'd bounce up and down more..i.e. more toward a "jog") I would focus on tightening up my stride into the "zip zone" of 87+..and right away I would speed back up a bit.

At mile 16.5 I suddenly heard a loud "PAUL!!!" ..it was Toni with Abi,  Louise and Simon (niece and nephew! I could not belive they had been crazy so sweet to come out and see us run! (Remember it was steadily raining BUCKETS of cold rain, with big winds since mile 12-13!)

I came over and grabbed Toni's hands and said hello....it was confirmed that they had see Charlie which was good. Charlie later said that seeing his family really gave him the boost he needed at this point too....and with 10 miles to go that's a bit scary.

Onward! That last digit on the average garmin pace was hanging in there at 9:36..I would not let it get to 9:38..and the splits/paceband still showed me up 30s to a minute at each mile marker.

Along the way several large streams were crossing the course and we had to run through water that was 40F (probably?) and over our ankles. The light coating of vaseline on my feet kept me from getting any blisters though (kept skin from getting waterlogged). This seems to have worked for Charlie too.

 LA really should have a better drainage system. Probably too late to fix that though 8/


The Finish

Split	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Avg Cadence	Elev+	Elev-
20	1.00	09:26	135	87	24	30
21	1.00	09:38	137	86	36	20
22	1.00	09:44	138	86	68	0
23	1.00	09:18	141	87	41	42
24	1.00	09:36	140	87	16	12
25	1.00	09:07	138	88	0	105
26	1.00	08:57	141	88	23	105
27	0.50	08:22	151	89	0	55

"One of the hardest races in the rain" says top 5 finisher

"By 1 p.m. on Sunday, an estimated one inch of rain had fallen in Santa Monica and 0.8 inches downtown, which would make this year's race unofficially the "rainiest" on record. "

Elevation profile...nice finish downhill!

 

Up to this point my mile splits and pace band was saying I was up about 45s to 60s under my goal pace...a teeny bit in the bank, if you will. You can see that the last miles after 23 had a good downhill to them (about 2%). I knew this too, and that it was a chance to do even better than 4:15.

I was annoyed that when the garmin said 23 I still didn't feel any downhill, Grrrr...but eventually in another .5 miles it  kicked in and I started to speed up.

I remember this part of the race pretty well because I felt really fast (the downhill helped!) and knew it was in the bag for a sub-4:15 with no pain or suffering. YES!

at finish! (with duck foot 8)

This is also my second fastest marathon.

I kept up a good clip to the finish but did not sprint like Surf City..nobody trying to pass me so no need.

In front of me was a dumbass  young guy that decided to shuck his raingear for the finish photo and just dumped it on the ground right on my legs..I narrowly avoided a face-plant by doing a quick side step to get it unwound from my feet...um...this was NOT easy with tired legs. I do admit to using a bit of profanity at this point 8/

After crossing the finish and getting medals etc I set about to see what food there was..it was not a pretty scene....the rain was still pounding. I grabbed a few things but there wasn't anything really great except some cliff bars. The atmosphere was more like a refugee camp of starving people than a party.

I was feeling really happy with my 4:12:28 and especially the negative split. I had held a good pace and managed to hold this pace on the 16-to-23 mile gentle ups and then kicked it into the finish and felt pretty darn good. Woo Hoo!

I decided to try to find Charlie ASAP and right around then my phone started buzzing. I found a very nice family waiting under a huge bunch of umbrellas and asked if I could take my phone out of the ziploc and make a call under cover so I wouldn't ruin it. They were most gracious to this soaking wet bedraggled person.

Toni told me Charlie was in the Georgian Hotel lobby where they were letting runners crash. I looked down the road and could see it so I headed over and found him there wrapped in two mylar blankets. 

post-finish, soaked to skin

I asked him how it went and he told me he pulled off a 3:44:xx (the official result was a 3:43:xx !) Woo hoo! We both did great in atrocious conditions. The link article mentions the hypothermic conditions that really wacked a lot of runners.

Charlie was not a happy camper however, he had pushed himself really really hard and could barely walk...had to start by going backwards. I'll bet he was worse off because of the rain and not walking around after stopping..if it had been a bright sunny day with lots of walking and grazing on food his legs would have been a lot better.

We had a long slog to the parking lot with the conditions staying just as horrible, along the way we stopped off in a Sears to warm up (still pounding rain and wind). We got a phone call letting us know some friends of Charlie's from his neighborhood were needing a ride. Eventually we met up and found our parking garage and car.

This is the first time in my recent adult history that I've experience actual shivering. The last time was I think 10 or 15 years ago when I had pneumonia. It's also the first time in a long time I've seen adults with totally blue lips. (not me though....I think?)

We drove home in very wet hydroplaning conditions with the heat on 80F ;) After long showers we headed out to have the obligatory beer and burger feed. Wow..did they taste good!  I am still processing what a great race it was for both of us....(until after we finished!)  

LA Marathon impressions

The LA marathon course was a great course...just enough rolling hills to keep things interesting, great views different parts of the city and fantastic crowds and volunteers. 

In fact, at various points I was torn between keeping warm with my jacket zipped up, or unzipping so people could see my name. Having crowds of people shout out your name with words of encouragement is a powerful stimulant!

I can't speak to the finish line amenities since the situation there was so tough but I can say the food they had on hand was pretty "meh". SFM still wins by a mile with the smoothies and scones. Silicon Valley Marathon is a close second with Yahoo fish tacos.

The Spoils and Stats

 

Time	Place	Men	55-59	Pace
4:12:26	3964/19866	3205/12046	99/577	9:37.8

Me and Charlie all cleaned up

Avg HR 134
Avg Cadence 87 (stayed in the "zip zone!")

Here are the splits recorded by the timing mats...my average pace of 9:37.8 corresponds to 59:50 per 10k. You can see that I had an even pace but it was a bit slower than that for each

10k 1:00:28  

15k 1:30:24

20k 2:00:28 (1:00 for 10-to-20k)

25k 2:30:41

30k 3:00:48  (1:00:20  for 20-to-30k)

35k 3:31:12

40k 4:00:22  (59:44 for 30-to-40k)

 The theme this year is "orange"..the color of some of the buses I guess? 8) I bought the hat at the expo (I collect hats..they don't take much space and I use them a lot). 

The backside of the shirt has a silhouette  of runners legs against all the boroughs and street names the race traverses.