I believe it was somewhere around October when it dawned on me I hadn’t done a marathon this year. It wouldn’t be the first time I went a whole year not completing one. I ran my first marathon in 2000 and I didn’t do any in 2001 and then the ball got rolling in 2002 and just kept rolling. When I thought about it more, I realized the years I didn’t do a marathon ended in a “1.” Weird. Maybe I’ll just decide not to run one in 2021 now.
Not doing a full this year was part intentional and part not. After my last marathon I was so mentally and physically fatigued I just didn’t want to train. I didn’t want to do the long runs. I was burned out and wanted to run just to run and not think about hitting those miles.
Soon after I completed the RnR LA Half in October, I heard about this small local race called Operation Jack Marathon. I started to seriously consider running the full. Before I knew it, time was passing quickly and my long runs became not so long runs.
The deciding point came during the 16 miler I planned to run and it was rough. By this time, I had about 5 weeks until the marathon, and when I didn’t hit those 16 miles, and then bailed on the 18 a couple of weeks later, the idea of doing the marathon went completely out the door, down the street, around the corner, over the bridge, and into the next time zone. I accepted the fact I just wasn’t going to run a full this year. And I was fine with that. However, I decided to run the half marathon portion so I signed up for the race…and then forgot about it.
Somewhere in my congested brain I knew I had signed up, but yet again time passed too quickly and before I knew it, it was Christmas Eve and reality sunk in, I was going to be running 13.1 miles in 2 days! The race was scheduled for the day after Christmas. Periodically, I thought about the race but it was weeeeks away! Wrong. It was in 2 days.
Waking up the morning after Christmas was a little tough. I just knew the people in their right mind were sleeping in and enjoying the quiet after the holiday celebrations. No, not me, and not for the other 299 runners and walkers.
My gawd it’s early!
Getting out to Manhattan Beach at 6:30AM had its perks. Seeing the sunrise and catching all the surfers out on their boards for those early morning waves was just so picture perfect.
I even saw some guy who forgot his shoes! Ohhh, he was a barefoot runner! I’m always in awe of barefoot runners. I mean really, how crazy is that??
“Is that a holder for his keys around his ankle or is he supposed to be on house arrest?“
Okay not really that crazy, and certainly not as crazy as me stopping to pet some cute dogs in the front yard of someone’s house on the way to the start.
“Please don’t be vicious dogs.”
When I finally saw the start, I immediately thought, “Whoa, this really is going to be a small race.”
Before I knew it, it was time to line up for the start. After a few instructions such as: you’re going to be sharing the bike lane with…well…bikes, stay to the right. And, you’re also sharing the bike lane with other runners, walkers, strollers, dogs, etc., still stay to the right.
“Did he say to stay to the right? Who’s right? Your right, or my right??“
And then we were off! It was a little crowded at the beginning but it quickly thinned out a lot.
And I mean, it thinned out a lot!!
Where did everybody go??
Even though this was a small race, it offered everything a much larger race would offer, such as water stations. We had three of them.
Water Station #1
The course was great too! We had a view of the ocean for almost in it’s entirely.
Kind of an odd place to park your boat.
While parts of the country had snow storms and freezing temperatures, we Los Angelenos had this to contend with:
Please don’t hate us.
We also had crowd support to cheer us on:
Thank you lovely supporters!!
The media even came out to cover us:
Probably the funniest thing along the course was the section closer to LAX and hearing the roar of the planes taking off drowning out my tunes. Okay that probably wasn’t really too funny, but I got a little kick out of it.
Da plane!! Da plane!!
Because I kind of forgot about the race, I didn’t really keep up training for it. Eh, I ran the 9 miles a couple of weeks before and I was pretty good to go. Okay, not really. I was tired. When I realized I was only a mile from the finish line, I put on my happy face:
Annnnnd the finish line:
Don’t crowd the finish line peeps. Keep it clear please. 🙂
I managed to survive the race in about 2:38 according to my Garmin since we weren’t chip timed. I’m not so stuck on the time though. I’m just happy I got done before the new year so I could enjoy the oranges and bananas they had waiting for us. I had a couple of pieces and then I was ready for real food.
I celebrated finishing my 21st half marathon at The Veggie Grill, where my awesome medal decided to photobomb my Papa’s Portobello burger.
If I’m around next year for the race, I would certainly like to run the half again. It was fun and it was a great way to cap off 2011. Next year, I’m ready for the full marathon again. Definitely ready.
