Our resident runner, Jennifer Tran, was all set to run the LA Marathon last weekend. She ran during lunch, after work, on holiday weekends and seemed to rarely sleep. All along the way, she wrote about her experiences for Kspace, and shared what she was reading about and experiencing.

Shepard Fairey, although born of eastern blood, has become somewhat synonymous with the LA urban art scene. So it was fitting that when the new owners of the LA Marathon were looking for someone to design the 25th anniversary commemorative poster, they turned to his Studio Number One. Cleon Peterson designed the commemorative poster, which not only includes three L.A.- area icons, but also the start of one of the largest marathons in the world and 2009 women’s champion Tatiana Petrova of Russia.

Like my high school basketball coach implored, “Quit looking at your feet, you’ll never get anywhere!” This is true of almost anything, especially when it comes to running. Marathon’s are a competition, but they are also a celebration of city life, and in the case of the LA Marathon “urban life.” For Los Angelenos, it’s really one of the few days that makes for a good excuse to get out of your car and explore on two feet this wildly complex and eclectic city.

I was debating on whether or not to share this, but I think it’s important for me to keep in mind before waking up on March 21, 2010 at who-knows-what-hour before the LA Marathon.

As I was slowly trying to pull myself out of my taper madness I thought, hey, what a great time to share this moment with the rest of the world on YouTube. Enjoy!

Signed up and ready to go for the LA Marathon?! That makes at least two of us! I created a twtvite to have a list of people on twitter so folks know who to cheer for on race day.

If you’re a running enthusiast, race addict or extremely goal oriented in general, you probably keep your eye on your pace at all times. When I find myself coming back from illness or injury as much as I’m excited to be able to run again, the first week or so is usually met with a ton of frustration. Without fail, my pace is usually knocked slower by almost a minute.

Like most people, I started running for health, fitness but most importantly, extreme vanity. When I ran my first marathon last year, I ended up gaining a ton (like 4 sizes worth) of weight and swearing off the 26.2 distance “permanently”… now that I am back for round two of the LA Marathon (and 90% back to my weight) I am just as determined (if not more so) that the marathon weight doesn’t happen again.

I just started working on my LA Marathon playlist (it takes a while longer than I thought it would to do a 5+ hour playlist) which made my mind wander to how few celebrities who live in LA are actually going to be running the LA Marathon. I mean really, only Shia LeBouf? What’s going on with the West Coast celebrities?! Music and motivation isn’t the only site that features celebrity running playlists. Here some cool ones I’ve found online that with music I’m actually likely to poach from:

As road racing and distance running and all of it’s hot trends (i.e.barefoot running) are gaining popularity, people in the medical field are seeking to quantify definitive answers on the question of whether or not the human body is built for distance. Researchers at the University in Minnesota are gathering data in a pretty interesting way: make training for a marathon a class!

This was my second time running Surf City and as shocking as it was it was by *far* the best half marathon performance I have ever had. I didn’t PR, but I know that I definitely would have had my friend and I not stopped during the race to chat for 5 minutes to one of our supporters who drove from LA to Huntington Beach with some awesome signage for all the twitter runners out in the crowd. This was also my first time live tweeting during a race (I got to temporarily take over the kspacetv account to tweet pictures and observations so I am sure that slowed me down a bit as well.

You know what’s worse than not being able to sleep the night before the big race? Not being able to mentally check out whether or not you have everything ready. After having been through so many of these nights, I’ve compiled a list of must-haves here that you can use to make sure if at all possible you’re at least able to rest.

The L.A. Marathon is now officially less than two months away. Although my training seems to be on track, I’m still nervous every single waking moment. I find comfort in my friends, especially those that I pull a lot of inspiration from. One person I’ve especially admired and look to during my internal running turmoil is my friend, Paul Both, an ultra-runner who is currently on similar journey of his own – running across the continental United States.

When I signed up for the LA Marathon (day of opening) I knew going in that I absolutely needed to have some formal training under my belt. I signed up with a package to train with the official training group for the LA Marathon, the Road Runners. The concept behind the Road Runners is simple, you surround yourself with a group of people who run at your pace and allow the group to keep you in rhythm and motivated to stay on pace.

Now that the LA Marathon training is in full swing, the runs have gotten increasingly longer and general overall feeling of bodily well being has… well changed. One of the things I usually struggle with when it comes for training for a full marathon is consistently doing my long runs on the weekend. My own personal fix for getting those weekend runs in is having some “side training” to rewards myself with – racing half marathons.

yeah we know you’re feeling a bit stuffed after the Thanksgiving long weekend, but it’s also the best time to mark your calendar at 111 days to go to get in shape for the newly routed LA Marathon on March 21st, 2010. It’s not just for pros you know, and with all the combined LA city councils playing nice for the first time, there’s a dashing new ’stadium to sea’ route that will take you through a host of classic LA locations along the way – with iconic shoe and apparel brand K-Swiss as official sponsor committed to be with you each step of the way