On March 19, 2006 I ran the Los Angeles Marathon. The 26.2 miles took me 5 hours, 42 minutes, and 50 seconds. I placed 11,897 out of 25,200 (which means I beat about 53% of the other runners). I am very proud of this, as completing a marathon is one of my life goals. The hardest part was miles 6 to 13, in fact I thought I was going to quit after mile 13 when I was half way. But for some reason everything got easy after that. I just kept going.

The marathon was awesome. I had fun the entire time and I plan on running many more. Prior to this I had only run 13 miles up in San Luis Obispo and it killed me. But the support during the marathon is awesome, people cheering all the way, plus water stations, Gatorade, and Cliff Bars. During the course I ate 4 Power Bars, 1 Cliff Bar, 2 Cliff Shots, 1 Orange, and drank tons of water and Gatorade.

Some observations and facts:

• After the Gatorade stations the ground was very sticky, just this extra effort to get your feet off the ground was crazy
• I saw 3 people fall during the race (they were all okay)
• At mile 22 two guys were handing out cups of beer to the runners!
• At mile 24 I saw a man on the ground getting CPR (he was not revived)

My splits: