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| lululemon dance team at mile 22- Brentwood!"..its all about learning to dance in the rain" |
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| Meredith & Julie- Team Plaid & Jouer support crew! They jumped in at mile 22 and ran with me! |
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| "Piece' de resistance" 3:36 in LA & NYC! |
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| Joie de Vivre a la Viceroy amenities! |
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I am on my way home from LA, sitting in first class on a (packed plane) red-eye back to Philly. Just left Meredith as we ate Wahoo's fish tacos & drank a dos equis on her deck in Marina del Rey- officially saying good-bye to LA as the sunset.
I ran the LA marathon yesterday, through torrential rain downpours & temps in the 40s. I decided to run LA again back in January, as my birthday/spring training/ get-away/ visit good friends/ weekend! It is my last training run as I prepare for Boston Marathon, in nicer weather than Philly. My strategy was to run this race sub-marathon pace, and to enjoy the LA tour by foot. Well that kinda went out the door at mile 1. It rained, it poured, lightning, thunder, and then it poured some more, and more, and mile 20 there were no walls, there were floods. I stopped to use the porta john at mile 3. I had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction at mile 4, but a nice runner gave me 2 safety pins that helped keep my bib from flapping in the wind. Mile 13 I finally shed my jacket, the jacket that was supposed to go after mile 1. Mile 19 we are going through the floods and I strike up a conversation with a girl next to me.. she asked me how many marathons I have done.. and then found out this is her second. It was Sara and she goes to UCLA. I also found out that she had only one 18 mile training run, and that it was done last week. This is at mile 20.. so I told her to just stick with me and I will push her through to the end, but we are going to pick up my friend at mile 22 and she will run the rest of the way with us. At this point, my forearms and hands were cold and numb. I took off my watch because it was too much for my arm. Mile 22 we hit the
lululemon dance party in the rain, and picked up Meredith! She ran with us to the finish at Santa Monica pier! We wore our plaid shorts... the LA plaid... for our Dads (who were known to rock the plaid). I wore my Gi Love wings on my shoes, and saw the irony that I finished 3:36 - the same as NYC marathon- wearing "
her shoes". Should we start placing bets for Boston??
Afterwards, I hobbled & shivered all the way back to the
Viceroy, 2 blocks from the finish line. This hotel was amazing! They took great care of the runners and families! Marathon morning they started us off with a great spread, coffee & tea bar before we took the shuttles to the start line. The shuttles to the start line were just around the corner from the hotel. I really felt like I was living large here... the warm bathrobes & slippers were just what the doc ordered after my marathon. After the marathon, we rallied the troops and went to the hotel's lounge/restaurant to enjoy their marathon happy hour specials from 12-5pm (pic below). It was still pouring down rain outside... we couldn't believe the monsoon was still going on through the night. We ventured to the promenade, but everything was shut down for the night because of the rain. Much like a town back home shuts down for ice storms. (snow we still stay open, ice is too dangerous).
I went shopping on Marathon Monday on Main St in Santa Monica. I walked into a boutique store for children, looking for something for my niece who's birthday is next week.. and Julia Roberts and her husband were buying something for her little boy. Another cool celeb sighting was sitting at the bar at Sushi Roku eating my pre-race meal, sushi- and there sits Clint Eastwood diagonally across from us.
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| LA Women & the Philly girl ;) |
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I know I will be paying this trip off for a while, but I had such an incredible weekend! I Love LA, even though I am not a famous celebrity, everyone in LA makes you feel like a VIP!
