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I am proud to say that I successfully completed the 2006 LA Marathon by walking the entire way, in 7.5 hours. Even if you're not running, 26.2 miles is a killer distance, and even if you're very fit and have trained diligently, you will have blisters, aches, pains, and soreness to varying extents. At the time, I was thrilled to finish something that was sooooo
long, although I thoroughly enjoyed meeting many great people wearing the t-shirts of the charities they were representing, donning interesting costumes or carrying signs, as well as the thousands of volunteers on the sidelines cheering, playing music, and yelling out my name to spur me forward. It was great. I'm sure the frontrunners weren't slapping hands with the onlookers, as we had the time to do. As it took almost eight hours to finish, I thought I'd be one of the last ones, but there were still thousands of people behind me, just as intent on finishing as I was, and it was so unifying and positive. At the Expo preceding the Marathon day, I met Bill Rodgers, now retired, who was selling his books and talking about his running history, and even he, a four-time winner, was so supportive of this desire to achieve an extreme-sport goal and to reach a greater fitness level than was previously held. He never expressed or even alluded to a belief that the amateurs have degraded the race. The winners are still the winners, and they're serious enough to take 1-2 years off from work/school/activities to train to win the marathons and the prize money pays for their lack of earned income during that period. Even the tv coverage of the marathons ends after the first men and women runners cross the finish line, but those stragglers are still out there dragging themselves to the line for that finishers' medal hours after the media has gone.
