L.A. Marathon Was ‘Like a Cold Downpour with a Side of Light Rain’

When the city closed the roads early Sunday morning for the LA Marathon, Alex Thompson’s cycling friends rode the race on their bikes at 4 a.m. “They told me the roads were a bit wet,” Thompson told Mar Vista Patch. “A bit wet? By 8:30 a.m. when I was running it was a deluge!”

Thompson spoke with Patch by telephone a few hours after he completed the marathon, clocking in at 3:15:00. After heading home, taking a shower, eating a cheese pizza and drinking Pepsi, Thompson said he’d just come back from a walk around the block, despite the fact that it was still pouring outside.

 “It’s important to keep your legs moving,” he said. “The last marathon I ran was nine years ago. I didn’t do anything afterwards and the next day it was impossible to walk!”

Battling the wet and windy conditions of Sunday’s Stadium to the Sea race, Thompson said, like many others, he expected there to be rain, but nothing like the torrential downpour that accompanied the 25,000 runners as they pounded down the streets of Los Angeles, in waterlogged clothes and shoes.

about his game plan and he said it was important to try not to step in any puddles. Today, he laughed at those words. “The whole course was a puddle!”

Running in the rain he said, was brutal. “It hurt. It hurt a lot. And a lot of people didn’t dress properly. It just sucks the energy out of you when you’re that cold. It felt like running slightly uphill. I think I thought it would be a warmer rain but it was more like a cold downpour with a side of light rain.”

He recalls at one point when he was running with a group along Wilshire Boulevard, “We heard a huge thunderclap and the rain started coming down in sheets for about three minutes. We all looked at each other and I thought, ‘this is crazy!’”

Crossing the finish line, Thompson said it’s normal to be given emergency blankets but on Sunday as people were wrapping themselves in two blankets, “and everyone was still shivering. It doesn’t surprise me at all that lots of people were treated for hypothermia.”

Thompson added that he was upset that the organizers hadn’t dealt better with the terrible conditions. “Of course this is LA and nobody expected that the weather would be so bad, but you’d cross the finish line and then we had to walk three quarters of a mile to get to shelter. And after running all that time, you’re spent and freezing.”

He also acknowledged that the crazy conditions contributed to his slower than desired finish time, but he still wasn’t happy with his performance. “I had hoped to run 2:54 and I’m always pretty public with what I want to do so it’s frustrating and a little embarrassing.” Still, he refused to let himself off the hook, saying, “Even if the conditions were good I think I would have run only a 3:03.”

Thompson said he ran the first half of the marathon in 1:25 but the second half in 1:50. “By 16 miles I was deep into coping,” he said. “And the last six miles were really, really hard. My legs started cramping and I had to keep stopping and stretching and starting again.”

Yet despite the conditions and not breaking his personal best time, Thompson said there were plenty of great moments in the race. “It was really impressive how many people came out to support us. Everyone was enthusiastic and cheering. Usually people stay inside and hide under their beds when it rains in LA, but they came out to cheer us on.”

He also said he was really impressed with the automatic tweets that Time Warner Cable organized for the race, that allowed people to pre-set their twitter accounts to update their times every 10 kilometers. “That was neat,” he said. “All my friends and family could follow and this is the first time any major marathon has done something like this.”

But the best moment of the whole race, he said was after he crossed the finish line. “It was great to just get some food, get in a warm car and come home.”

Tomorrow, Thompson says he’s taking the day off, but on Tuesday he’ll probably be back out running. “Or maybe I’ll go for a ride on my bike,” he said. “It’s not as tough as running.”