Now let’s talk about you. If you are reading this and are in the Southern California area go ahead and mark MARCH 21 on your calendar now. I want to see all the friends and family I can cheering me on along the course.  Check out the course and pick out a spot (or spots)

Start planning now: Click Here and print out the course map. Let me know where you plan to be along the course and I’ll let you know what time I expect to get to that point!

Its gonna be an awesome day and very exciting to see 25,000 runners hitting the streets of LA. I can’t wait to see each of you along the way!

-Timmy

PS: I’m totally serious about this! hit me up if you need more information to plan your LA Marathon day!

Sunday I finally ran my first Half-Marathon! While I don’t have any other Half-Marathons to base my comparison, but this is so far my favorite race I’ve done.

The day before this race, we were spending some time in Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure park just enjoying rides as well as picking up our bib and packets. By the late afternoon I was limping! My left hip was hurting on every step. So we took the rest of the day at an easy lazy pace and rested. Just before bed was when all the nervousness and panic started to set in for us. We pinned our bibs to the shirts, packed our gels and filled our water bottles. Checked and double checked all our belongings and ensured our iPod’s were charged. And we did all this at a frantic pace. I really wish we had someone just filming us because as we looked back that was as crazy as we’ve ever gotten.

The morning of the race we braved through a huge delay to enter the parking structure and finally found ourselves with the 10,000+ other runners eager to get underway. The sun was just about to rise it was about 5:30am at this point but Disney had pulled out all the stops with the music pumping and searchlights filling the skies. The race officially started at 6:00am but our corral, “G” didn’t cross until closer to 6:25am.

Susana was our official photographer and had a great vantage point above the start area and go some awesome shots of the streets filled with runners. As we passed under the bridge we were able to spot her and wave. To my surprise about 100′ later I saw my sister yelling and waving from the sidewalk! I had tried calling her the night before to no avail but she still made it in time to catch the start!

The beginning of the race took us through both Disney’s California Adventure and Disneyland. While the scenery was of course, ideal, the race course itself was quite difficult as the pack of runners was still quite large and dense and the course took us through some narrow entrances and pathways. It was somewhere in here that my iPod decided to end my Nike+ workout and I had to restart the workout for the remainder of the race, (hence the two Nike+ graphs below.)

After the parks we took to the streets of Anaheim for the remaining 9 miles. This actually went by much faster than I anticipated. It was these 9 miles which made this race one of best I’ve ever run, there were spectators and cheer’ers gathered almost the entire length of the course! High school bands and cheereleader troups; Mariachi bands and Hula Dancers were strategically placed what seemed like every mile and really helped to keep the race moving along and kept me motivated to push on through.

Coming in to the Finish line was a very surreal moment. The final leg took us through Downtown Disney, which with its tall buildings on either side rushing by made me feel like I was sprinting much faster than I know I was. And it was here, again that I was surprised by Susana, Marcela and my sister Kris cheering me on from the side! (Marcela had finished the race about 50 Minutes before me, She actually trained properly.)

Limping through the finisher’s area, I received my medal and snacks and hobbled back to my friends to cheer on Clark, the 3rd in our troop.

All in all a great race and a great day… later that same day however was the Nike Human Race 10K in Los Angeles. After some napping and stretching Marcela, Susana, and I geared back up to run that race as well. I’ll share that in the next post.

So instead of running in 3 races for a total of 22.4 Miles that weekend, I’ll only be doing 2 races for a total of 19.3 miles. Still it will be a fun fun weekend!

Now back to training.

YAY! So It’s official, for my crazy weekend in August I will not be running alone!
To quickly recap:

• Saturday, Aug 30, 6am, Disneyland 5K (3.1 Miles)
• Sunday, Aug 31, 6am, Disneyland Half Marathon (13.1 Miles)
• Sunday, Aug 31, 8:31pm, The Human Race 10K (6.2 Miles)

Today Marcela signed up for the same races! So as I kill myself running 22.4 Miles 19.3 Miles, its nice to know I’ll have company.
Susana is running the Disneyland 5K on Sat and the Human Race 10K on Sunday too, so that should keep me going.

There is still room on our Team Roster for plenty more runners! Join us at any or all of the races!
Email me for links to registration if you need ‘em

Tim@RunTimmy.com

-Timmy

EDIT: I didn’t sign up for the Disneyland 5K in time. So rather than running in the race I’ll be there in support of my friends!

The race of all races! Nike is organizing 25 races across the globe to run a 10K on 8.31.08.
For me thats the same day as the Disneyland Half Marathon. So rather than have to make a decision as to which to run in, I’m gonna run both! The Disneyland Half Marathon starts at 6:00am while the Nike Human Race doesn’t start until 8:31:08pm. So I have all day to recover from the 13 mile race and get ready for the 6 mile race. Easy Money!
Oh, and to top it all off, the day before this I plan to run the Disneyland 5K with Susana.
Its gonna be one helluva weekend. All the more reason to make every training run count!

Sunday, May 4, was the Santa Monica Classic in Santa Monica, CA. A 5K and 10K race to benefit Heal the Bay. Susana and I ran the 10K

Our first time running this race and I’ve got to say, It was a great race! The weather was ideal for running, It was overcast and still a bit cool. If it was much hotter or the sun came out, the lack of shade areas on this course could have made it very tough.   

The race kept us mostly on Ocean Avenue. We had a great view looking north towards the hills with the beach to the left. Running under the palm trees that Southern California is so well known for. After right turn into a residential area and back down to the beach we were again on Ocean Ave. This time running towards the Santa Monica Pier and our finish line.

Susana and I kept pace together throughout the race which was fun. We maintained a 9-10min/mile average for most of the 10K. When we found ourselves within 400 meters of the finish line we of course turned into competitive monsters and sprinted in. Her short legs were no match for mine and I beat her, but only by mere seconds.

Sunday, May 4, 2008