I’m a few years late on checking off a big box on my Before 40 list, but I’ve always been a little slow. I’m immature. I get a joke several minutes after the punchline’s been told. I’m still waiting for puberty to finish in some places. You get the picture. So I’m not sweating that I’m a couple years behind on doing something I said I wanted to do in theory but had given myself a pass on.
My big box (one of only a handful that hadn’t yet been checked) sat in front of the words “Finish a Marathon.”
The pass I’d given myself was really on a technicality, as I’ve biked Long Beach’s marathon course (before they shortened the bike tour to 20 miles) several times. But the fact that I couldn’t say I ran a marathon bugged me, the way I’d be quietly bothered if I carried around a knockoff Louis Vuitton purse. But my medal a few days ago was for THE LA Marathon, and there was no fakin’ it.
The LA Marathon offers a great course, especially for the first-time marathoner. Their “stadium to the sea” course spends a fair amount of time on the decline, not that I noticed; especially not around mile 18 when temps shot into the lower 90s. While at the beginning of the race, I only indulged in pristine race-sponsored snacks and fluids and assistance, by the time we got to West LA, I was saying “yes, please” to any running water hose, sliced orange, communal bucket of ice, and random board smeared with Vaseline (chaffing is nothing to mess with) in sight.
Injury kept me from training the way I’d planned; which meant that I did not run what I believe is my optimal race. Perhaps I’ll consider giving it another try, though the sane half of me thinks it’s fine to savor that checkbox and move on. For now, it’s a good time to rest my bad knee and enjoy sleeping in on Saturday mornings.
That is, unless, I get the hankering to make up a Before 50 list and slip the word “Triathlon” in there somewhere.
Of course, my friends helped me get my recovery grub on the next day. The Attic’s French toast did the job quite nicely for me.
