TIMOTHY MAKI
Staff Writer
When Elizabeth Smith crossed the finish line she almost fell over. Fortunately, a volunteer caught her just in time and immediately gave her water and something to eat. She was exhausted. She couldn’t feel her legs. She was bawling. Elizabeth Smith had just run and completed her first Los Angeles Marathon.
Smith has always been an active person. As a young girl growing up in San Diego she often went hiking or visited the beach on Saturday afternoons. However, participating in a marathon was far from her mind. “I was never a runner. I hated running,” Smith said.
But in spring of 2006 Smith decided that she wanted to get healthy and into good shape, and began running as a means of exercise.
In September several of Smith’s friends who came to visit encouraged her to participate in the Dec. 3 City of Angels Half Marathon. With her recent dedication to personal fitness and strong support from her friends, Smith decided to run the half marathon. Entering this marathon opened Smith’s eyes to the excitement surrounding running events such as these.
“I realized how fun it was. It’s very social,” she said.
Shortly after she crossed the half marathon finish line, she gained the motivation to take on one of the biggest running events in California—the Los Angeles Marathon.
In the weeks to come Smith would begin a grueling training process. This would prove to be a tremendously difficult task. Smith, the assistant director of Student Journalism at Pepperdine, is constantly busy working on The Graphic in addition to writing for a television station on the weekend. She simply did not have the time to join a running group, so instead chose to follow an online training schedule. Smith would run five days a week, covering approximately 35 to 40 miles per week.
“You definitely have to be committed,” Smith said. “It’s very time consuming with long trainings on Friday.”
Courtenay Stallings also knows the dedication required to run a marathon. Stallings, the administrative assistant in the Communication Division, ran the L.A. Marathon in 2004. Unlike Smith, Stallings trained with a group of runners at Pepperdine.
“We used to run around Malibu,” said Stallings. “We started six months before the marathon.”
“You definitely have to be aware of what you take into your body,” Stallings also said.
Smith carefully managed her diet as well, loading up on fiber, fruits and vegetables, and cutting back on red meat.
Although Smith suffered a setback in January when she strained her Achilles tendon, she was still well prepared by the beginning of March. On the Saturday morning of March 4, Smith’s friends and her boyfriend came out to cheer her on as she began the marathon.
Universal Studios was the starting point for the 22nd annual Los Angeles Marathon, with the finish line located in downtown Los Angeles. Smith had set no specific goals, but was eager to simply finish the race.
“The first half was really easy,” said Smith, who had already had previous experience running a half marathon. The course of the 26.2-mile marathon weaved past the high rises of downtown and through various cultural areas of Los Angeles, such as Korea Town and Crenshaw.
“It was cool because you run through the neighborhood,” Smith said. Because of its diverse course, the L.A. Marathon is considered by many to be a great way to discover and soak in the sights of the city.
As Smith approached the later half of the marathon, she began to feel the pain. “At mile 18 I felt like my body was shutting down,” she said. Miles 16 to 20 is an incredibly crucial point in the marathon. It is in these few miles that many runners collapse from fatigue and are unable to continue. For this reason, this last stretch of the race is nicknamed “The Wall.”
Looking around her, Smith could see the agony on her fellow runner’s faces as they struggled to keep going. “It’s a mental obstacle,” said Smith. “You know you have eight more miles to go and you’re exhausted.”
Determined to finish, Smith kept running. “I didn’t walk because I was afraid I would fall,” she said. But as the finish line grew nearer, Smith knew that she was approaching the end.
“When I saw the mile 25 marker it really hit me that I was going to finish the race,” she said.
Smith successfully crossed the finish line with a time of four hours and forty-three minutes. She nearly collapsed on the ground after she finished, but was saved with the helping hand of a volunteer.
Women around her were crying, happy to have also finished the race. A victorious Smith also cried as she looked down at a course map and realized that she had just run over 26 miles. “You feel like you made it out of battle,” she said.
Having finished her first full marathon, Smith encourages everyone to participate in future races.
“Do it,” she said. “You have plenty of time to train.”
One of Smith’s marathon highlights was being able to experience the city and its community. “It was special because it was neat to see people from the city come out to support you,” she said. Smith plans to run again next year and says that the marathon was “an experience I’ll never forget.”
04-23-2007