My hobby is training and racing in a variety of endurance events. For me, the longer the event is, the more it interests me. I’ve run 100 miles in the Arizona Desert. I’ve swum 12 miles in the ocean off the Santa Barbara coast. I’ve finished 6 Ironman distance races, about 70 triathlons and recently (March 24th), I ran in the LA Marathon.
I’ve run many marathons but this was the 3rd time running the LA Marathon, and really the first time “for me”. The other 2 times I ran this marathon I did it to run along side and pace a friend so they could finish their first marathon. Those were run in about 5-½ hours each which is a fairly relaxed pace. It had been a couple years since I had run a marathon and this one was for me, meaning I was going to give it a good strong effort. I’m not super fast but my goal was to finish in 3-½ hours (an 8 minute per mile pace), which is pretty respectable. I trained 3 months for this run and on March 24th at 7am, along with 25,000 of my closest friends (haha), we were off on our 26.2 mile run through the streets of LA, starting at Dodger Stadium and crossing the finish line near the Santa Monica Pier.
The run was going pretty well and I was feeling just fine for the first 20 miles, then we turned onto Sepulveda Blvd for a 1 mile slight uphill segment. That’s when my legs first started talking to me letting me know they were getting tired. I held my pace steady for the next couple miles but when I reached mile 23, my legs were protesting loudly demanding that I give them a break and start walking. At that moment, one corner of my brain was telling me “you only have 3 miles left, suck it up and keep going”, while another corner of my brain was saying “stop this foolish pain and walk”. I must admit that for a split second the “WALK” side of my brain won. But before I could actually slow down and walk, the “suck it up” side won the internal battle.
True, my legs were worn out and I couldn’t hold my pace any longer but I kept running those final 3 miles. Even though I missed my 3-½ hour goal by 11 minutes (finished in 3:41). I’m happy that I kept running through to the finish line.
If you need your property painted but are having some delays or set-backs and are not sure how you are going to make it to the finish line with a beautiful looking building, don’t slow down and “WALK”, give us a call and we will keep you “RUNNING” all the way to the finish line.
Our phone # is 818-951-3207 or fax us at 818-951-5279. Or you can email us at greg@ferrispainting.com or log on to our website at www.ferrispainting.com and email us from there.
Best Regards,
Greg