LA Marathon!

02/01/2013

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Do you ever sign up for races on a whim? I seem to do this often - out of nowhere I will be running a marathon, 10k, half marathon, or other distance that I had no idea I would be running only days earlier. Some of my favorite examples of this are the Grand Rapids Marathon in 2009 (which qualified me for Marathon Maniacs!) and the Melbourne Beaches Marathon in 2011.

Well for the past three years I have tossed around the idea of running the LA Marathon but it never worked out with the flight from Florida, hotel, work... This year I brought up running the LA Marathon with my friend Larry who runs LJayHealth.com and he said he would run LA too if I was serious. After some research on flights, hotels, and entry fees I knew this would be the year to run the LA Marathon!

It ended up working out perfectly. Direct flight from Tampa to Los Angeles, my friend Sam, that I ran the Georgia [Atlanta] Marathon with last year, decided to join us.  We also ended up finding a great charity to run with "The Peacock Foundation".
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The Peacock Foundation supports the provision of animal-assisted interventions (AAI) and activities (AAA) for at-risk youth by partnering with mental health practitioners, public service agencies, and community organizations.


If you would like to donate to The Peacock Foundation please click here.  Any donation would be appreciated.  Anyone with a pet understands the feeling of love that you experience.  Sadly, for some children the people who should be important in their lives have let them down too often.  These animal interventions allow children to experience love and companionship in a way that they otherwise do not experience at home.
If you haven't looked at the course for the LA Marathon take a look at it here. The course starts at Dodger Stadium and runs 26.2 miles through Los Angeles, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Century City and finishes though Santa Monica ending at the famous Santa Monica Pier! 

Some of the amazing landmarks you pass on the route include Dodger Stadium, Chinatown, Capitol Records, Hollywood & Vine, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Chinese Theater, Rodeo Drive and the Santa Monica Pier! AMAZING!

This will be my first marathon in California, marathon number two for 2013 and the last marathon I will run (that I currently know of..) before Berlin in September. 

Have you ran the LA Marathons current "Stadium to the Sea" course before? Are you running the LA Marathon this year? 

I will be sharing my LA Marathon training regimen on my next post. Its going to be a little different than anything I have done before!  Stay tuned!!
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No NYC Marathon & Back in action!

11/13/2012

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My INSANE marathon training for NYC came to an end last week.  I was tapering down for the NYC marathon and couldn't have been more excited!  The last 4 years I have been dreaming about running the NYC marathon and this was going to be my year.  Well, we all know the end result of this story by now.  Obviously life had other plans and my dream of the New York City marathon is on hold.  Living in Florida I definitly understand the effect a hurricane can have on a community.  I live right on Tampa Bay, and if a hurricane hit Tampa I am sure it would be devistating.  My only gripe about NYC before I move on is that it should have been canceled before Friday evening.  I received notice about the cancelation from friends and family via facebook and text messages as I was leaving the NYC marathon expo with bags and bags of souveniers, my bib, etc.  It was very dissapointing to find out as soon as you are walking back to your hotel after being at the expo and getting pumped up for the event.  I would have much rather had them cancel the event as soon as the hurricane hit.  That way I could have been able to re-arrange my schedule, get refunds on most of the travel arrangements and use that towards running the NYC Marathon in a future year.  The New York Road Runners do not have any answers as of now to what will happen next year.  Will they open up the race to all  2012 runners? Will there be fees associated?  Who knows.  All I know is that my next marathon distance race will be the Space Coast Marathon on November 25, 2012 in Cocoa, FL.  After that I have Jacksonville Bank Marathon and then Disney Goofy Challenge.  I might sign up for the Clearwater Marathon, but I do not know for sure as of today.  All that this means is INSANE marathon training has resumed!

One of the reasons I was especially bummed out about the canceleation of the NYC marathon is because I have already committed myself to the Berlin Marathon next year. Another World Marathon Major event held September 29, 2013.  If I did NYC 2013 that would be two major races back to back, vacation, travel.... and who knows -- possible cancelations!  I am excited to run in Germany.  The Berlin marathon sounds like an amazing event and I am looking forward to running the 40th anniversary Berlin Marathon.

I purchaced another workout program recently to mix up my INSANE marathon trianing routine, RevAbs.  I just started using it a few days ago and so far I have enjoyed the workouts.  Some of the catch phrases in the videos seem a little cheesy but the ab workouts are no joke and I really want to concentrate more on my core area.  A strong core creates a strong runner!  I am going to incorporate RevAbs into my training from now until Jacksonville and will be updating this website with my review/results!

I wanted to leave this post with some photos of my NYC trip.  On "marathon sunday" Jackie and I ran a 1/2 marathon around Central Park with thousands of other displaced runners.  Enjoy the photos and if you have any interesting NYC Marathon stories feel free to leave a comment below with them!

-James B.
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