L.A. Marathon

You might be wondering what I’ve been doing since I’ve come back. Unfortunately, not much running. You know how it goes, working a lot in January to pick up the slack for the holidays, then, you know, auto accident in February. You know how things go. It’s nothing to get alarmed about, but it did prevent me from running.

I’m easing back into it again, and what better way to celebrate getting motion again then to support other runners. Last weekend, I joined some running buddies at the L.A. Marathon. “What?”, you might be asking, “But I thought you just said…” Oh, don’t worry, I wasn’t running. I helped APLA pass out water and Gaterade at Mile 19.

Rochelle and I decided to volunteer for the latter part of the marathon, so by the time we arrived, many runners had already completed. Practically everyone that passing us were walking and looked rather haggard. It was a surprisingly warm day, which wasn’t helping them, poor things. So, I got to be quite a cheerleader. “What to go! Keep it up! You’re doing great!” Another very cool feature about this marathon was that if a person registered by a certain time, their first name was printed directly onto their number bib. So, we would also call out their names. It was so rewarding to see a bit of sparkle return to tired eyes and smiles magically appear as they kept trudging forward.

Since Mile 19 was downtown, it was very convenient to just use the transit system, so that added to my experience. On the way back, the train was rather crowded with marathoners. My favorite moment was at one particular stop where the trains were cleared of its passengers. Watching the herd of slow-moving runners shuffle along the platform made me laugh. I thought, “It’s the Night of Living Runners!” I wish I had brought my camera, that’s for sure.

Being part of this experience definitely got my “let’s get running” juices flowing. The hard part is just getting back into the habit of it, but I'm sure that'll happen. I just keep reminding myself: one step at a time.

So stay tuned. More soon…