LA Marathon, The Anti-LA Event

I braved the rain this AM to check out the finish line of the LA Marathon. I was not the only one. Tons of people were out, getting drenched to watch the runners. I have to admit, seeing people running and finishing was pretty inspiring. I missed the elite finishers, but saw the next group of runners, people who seemed like unbelievable runners, but not quite professional - people finishing between 2hrs30min and 3 hours. The timing and watching the end was pretty cool because at this level, the runners finish a little bit spaced out, and so it's like one runner every 30 seconds or so and the announcer announces them and their time and sometimes the announcer knew a little bit about the finisher. One guy, as a promotion, ate McDonalds for the last 30 days before the marathon (a sort of anti-Super Size Me for the Ronald McDonald charity). One guy ran the race barefoot. Most of these runners looked very in shape, except from one old slightly overweight Mexican dude who ran past and I was like - no way this guy finished a marathon this fast - I figured he hopped on somewhere during the last mile of the race...or...probably more likely scenario is that he is like a former Olympian or something crazy like that. A few women finished in this pack - the first qualified for the Olympics with her time. It was pretty awesome. I thought I was some sort of impressively motivated person for riding my bike all the way there in the rain, but there were thousands of people - families, kids, old folks - who did the same without much thought. Not to mention the runners who obviously train like madmen and women and then ran this crazy thing. Now...I will never run a marathon. This I know. But man, watching people finish, and seeing all these Los Angelinos supporting and cheering and watching these people do it. It is a different side of this city...one worth checking out.