On Sunday was the 26th LA Marathon, and the weather couldn’t have been worst for the runners: non-stop heavy rain, thunderstorms, strong wind and temperatures in the low 50F! Sometimes I wonder if I still live in California.
I thought a lot about the runners because I have run it before and I know how hard it is to complete a 26 .2 miles, and I don't want to imagine how hard it had been for them in these though conditions.
A few musicians were running the marathon:
Flea bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers was doing it in order to raise money for his Conservatory of Music in Silver Lake, a school which offers private music lessons and grant scholarships to children in need, a program he started because of the decline of publicly funded musical instruction.
He was running the Marathon with a team of runners and he had announced the fundraising on this page: http://www.crowdrise.com/teamsilverlake
The total raised was $ 65,377 when I looked at it!
There was even the promise to get a meet and greet with the team and Flea, a Silverlake T-shirt, a conservatory Inspiration spot at mile 7.5 with live music and runner support (so useful!), and even tickets to an upcoming Silverlake Conservatory musical event for runners or individuals who had raised at least $1,000. You can still donate till March 31st.
Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie was also running his first Marathon this Sunday, this time for 826 LA (http://www.826la.org), a non profit organization to support students with their creative and expository writing skills, and to help teachers inspire their students to write. He was asking to donate $1 for each mile, let’s hope he did finish the 26!
I wish I had run with them, and I hope they survived this atrocious deluge!
But these guys rock, at all levels