LA Marathon

I've been planning to run the LA Marathon in 2009, as my second attempt to break the 3 hour mark. It's not a super-fast course, but i figured it had the advantage of being a short road trip and a familiar place. Even though it's not on a par with the other major city marathons yet, i want to run it once just to check it off the list.

However, it's starting to be more of an adventure than i expected. The race has been operated for several years by an outfit called Devine Sports. They scheduled the 2009 race for Sunday, March 1st. However, Devine has had some financial trouble, and according to a recent LA Times article, Devine sold the event to an organization created by Frank McCourt, the owner of the LA Dodgers. That alone wouldn't be a big deal, but the new organization apparently plans to move the race to Monday, Feb. 19 (President's Day). True, it's still early enough that most people aren't too deep into their training cycle; but that's still gotta be a big ship to steer in another direction.

I'm undecided about what i'll do now. I like the idea of a Monday marathon (very Boston-like), but it means i have to start my training program two weeks early. That doesn't sound like much, but since i like to run in the mornings it means starting before the DST time change and even more dark, cold mornings. That week is also what we affectionately call "ski week" around here, meaning that my kids have the whole week off so we go snowboarding. My alternatives are the Napa Valley marathon on March 1, or maybe waiting all the way until summer and doing the Rock'n'Roll San Diego again.