Long Beach Marathon 2008

I dug up this report from the Runner's World forum. This was where I became the bus bench inspector! I can't believe I came back for more!

I survived... barely. Looks like Slow-Mo, my alter ego, made an appearance today! My right foot has been bothering me lately so I haven't been putting in the miles since the Disneyland race. My plan was to run around a 2hr first half and go from there.

1 - 9:22
2 - 8:57
3 - 8:55
4 - 9:32
5 - 9:35
6 - 9:12
7 - 9:07
8 - 9:14
9 - 9:38
10 - 9:36 Both ankles felt sore, most likely due to running on concrete. Right foot felt sore too so I decided to slow down the pace earlier than originally planned.
11 - 10:24
12 - 9:59
13 - 10:15

I reached the halfway point around 2:08. At this point I knew that I was in for a long day.

14 - 10:37
15 - 11:16
16 - 11:15
17 - 12:21
18 - 17:31 Wheels came off, everything started falling apart.
19 - 23:53 Everything cramped up. I could barely walk at this point. Sat down at the curb a few times to massage my legs. If this was a horse race, they would've shot this horse to put him out of his misery. =) But thank goodness to the people at the aid station they gave me a bottle of Gatorade and sprayed my legs with analgesic spray.
20 - 17:26
21 - 14:33 Was able to start running a little bit. I made a mental note to work on replenishing my electrolytes for my future races.
22 - 15:22
23 - 12:15
24 - 14:23
25 - 17:57
26 - 21:59 Everything cramped up again. Every time I sat down at a bus bench, people asked if I was waiting for the bus
26.2 - 4:01 Could not even run to the finish line. Usually I can summon up some energy to at least trot across but this time I had to limp across the finish line. Both calves were knotted up and my right groin was cramped up. It was definitely not a pretty ending.

Finish: 5:28:42

I'm starting to think it was a bad idea to join the marathon maniac club. Hopefully I'll do a little bit better on my next race. But I will still need to run conservatively if I want to show up to Hawaii in one piece.