After two short months of marathon training the big day arrived. It was a beautiful day for a marathon. Blue skies and warm temperatures. And it was quite an experience.

We arrived at 6:30 and since we were running on behalf of a charity called Child Share we were allowed to enter a suite at the official marathon hotel and eat breakfast and warm up. At 8:00 we left the hotel and made our way to the start line. It was quite a scene. 25,000 runners were registered and so the line of people was a few blocks long. The runners are organized by how fast they think they can finish. And since once the gun goes off it actually takes a few minutes to get to the start line each runner has a computer chip attached to their shoe so that your time starts when you actually cross the start line.

The gun went off and all of us were off. There was pushing and shoving and it took almost a mile for everyone to get sorted out and have their own running room.

The first 15 miles were just a lot of fun. Tons of people were lining the streets cheering and every mile there was a water stop where there were bands playing and different cultural groups giving performances. We were always running through neighborhoods and it was a great chance to see the variety of neighborhoods and peoples that live in LA. It was like a huge festival. People were all sitting on their porches, or balconies, with their stereos cranked up and a lot of them were having parties with people dancing in the front yards etc.

Just as my dad told me the problems start after mile 15. And they did. I had had a sore left calf and Achilles from about 2 weeks before the race and while it kind of hurt the whole way it really started to get bad after mile 15. I kept running until mile 24 where Sarah and my mom were waiting to cheer us on and then I just couldn't run anymore. My dad and I had been running together the whole time but now he went ahead. But I kept walking and made it all the way to the finish. I was in pretty rough shape as you can tell by my white face in the last picture. In fact a few minutes after finishing I leaned over and puked up all the water and orange juice in my stomach.

But it was all good because I had made it and considering I walked the last two miles my time was pretty good. We had been hoping to make it in 4 hours and my dad did that exactly and I came in at 4:12.

Overall it was a great experince. I would definitely do it again. It is so exhilarating to be with all those people and to push your body to the limit.