Race Report: Los Angeles Marathon 2008

I ran the 23rd annual Los Angeles Marathon yesterday morning along with 25,000 other runners, cheered on by a purported 1,000,000 spectators along the way. The LA Marathon is one of the largest in the country, and the crowd of runners at the start was unlike any I’d seen before. Despite being relatively close to the front, it took me three minutes to cross the start line after the gun went off, but it was a perfect day for running — sunny, in the 50s, with a slight breeze — a welcome improvement over Surf City.

The course started in Universal City, wound down through Hollywood and made its way south of I-10 through many of LA's diverse neighborhoods, eventually finishing downtown. Running has been a terrific way for me to explore LA. After all of my long runs, I've probably seen more of LA on foot than I have in a car, and this course offered some great new views, especially of downtown. If I was to criticize, I’d say they missed an opportunity to route us through Beverly Hills or Santa Monica (hello, the beach?), but I did enjoy the run, and I have to give kudos to the organizers for pulling off an extremely well-oiled event. I finished in 3:35, another personal best. California has been good for me, I guess.

Afterwards, my support team (Janet) rushed me to Tom Bergin’s, our favorite neighborhood bar, to replenish my essential fluids. Tom Bergin's has been pouring fine ales and whiskies in LA since 1936, and the horseshoe-shaped bar was supposedly the inspiration for the TV show "Cheers." Everyone doesn't know our names yet, but as often as we frequent Tom's, it won't be long.