Mile 10 – 2015
At the age of 37 I trained for and ran my first marathon, the 2015 Los Angeles Marathon. Although I enjoy distance running, the full marathon for me was meant to be a one time, bucket list type of activity. I just wanted to set a decent time and be happy with it for the rest of my life. My goal was to finish in under 4 hours but that year turned out to be the hottest L.A. Marathon on record. Temperatures reached into the 90’s which made things very difficult, and dozens of people went to the hospital with heat stroke. Under the conditions you could say that I was satisfied with my time of 4 hours, 34 minutes and 35 seconds. But I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied with wondering for the rest of my life what I could have done if the weather was different.
Training for a full marathon is ridiculously time consuming and I really wasn’t up for doing it again right away. I was glad to get my life back and my wife was glad to get me back, too. So I decided to wait a few years and try again in 2018 when I would be the youngest in the 40 and up group. And this time I’m doing things a little bit differently. So here are four things I’m doing differently this time around: