MarathonGuide.com Logo - Marathon Directory, Marathons, Marathon Results, News and More Click Here: Please visit our Sponsor facebook icon  twitter icon
Site Map
 
   Marathon Press Releases
Press Releases Home
City of Los Angeles Marathon (L.A. Marathon): Information & Reviews | News |
 

Press Release - Los Angeles Marathon - 5/19/09

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
    A MARATHON IS NOT ENOUGH: DEAN KARNAZES TO RUN 100 MILES TO L.A. 
                     AND THEN RUN THE L.A. MARATHON

LOS ANGELES, California, May 19, 2009 – Running one marathon is plenty for 
most people, but not Dean Karnazes.

The 46-year-old ultra-marathoner who grew up in Southern California will 
return – on foot – to run in the 2009 Los Angeles Marathon next Monday on 
Memorial Day, May 25, by running approximately 100 miles from Santa Barbara 
to Los Angeles on Saturday and Sunday!

"I'm an L.A. native, so I feel a certain affinity for the L.A. Marathon and 
I so look forward to running it every year," he said on a video posted on 
YouTube on May 9. "In fact, one of my fondest memories ever is my Dad 
running the L.A. Marathon; he ran the inaugural L.A. Marathon and I was 
there to watch him cross that finish line. It left an impression on me 
forever.

"So the weekend of the L.A. Marathon, I'm actually going to be staying in 
Santa Barbara. It's about 100 miles from Santa Barbara where I'm staying to 
the L.A. Marathon, so I'll take off about 24 hours in advance to run the 
100 miles. I'll run right down the Pacific Coast Highway, right along the 
coast. It will be extremely beautiful, so I look forward to that. I'll run 
to the Expo, actually, on Sunday and I'm going to give a talk, so if anyone 
wants to come listen to me talk, I'll be at the Expo on Sunday afternoon 
and then I'll probably kick about and run the Marathon with everyone on 
Monday. It seems like a great weekend."

Karnazes will appear at free-to-the-public Run/Ex/09 at the Los Angeles 
Convention Center on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. to share his experience of running 
down the coast over the prior 24 hours.

"My earliest recollection of running was running home from kindergarten," 
he noted. "I started running at six years old." He recalled that he ran his 
first marathon at age 14, but then gave it up as he matured, graduating 
from San Clemente High School and then majoring in food science technology 
at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

"I found myself in a bar on my 30th birthday," he remembered in the video. 
"I said to my buddies at 11 o'clock at night, 'I'm going to go running 
tonight. I'm going to run 30 miles to celebrate my 30th birthday. And they 
said, 'You're drunk,' and I said, 'Yeah, I am, but I'm still going to do 
it.' So I walked out of a bar at 11 at night and literally ran all night 
long." That marked his return to running and he's been on the roads ever 
since. "You really stretch the boundaries of the human spirit and human 
endurance," he said, noting that he's run as much as 350 miles non-stop.

Asked how many marathons he's run, he replies that "I stopped counting at 
100; I don't think I've quite run 200." But he respects the distance and 
the effort required: "Completing a marathon is an incredible achievement; 
it's something that 99.9% of people will never do."

Karnazes, who lives in Marin County, isn't planning on resting much after 
Monday's L.A. Marathon, though. He'll be on the road to race again in San 
Diego the next weekend. 

                            ###

 

Some Ads

Become an Advertiser

Click Here: Please visit our Sponsor

Click Here: Please visit our Sponsor

Click Here: Please visit our Sponsor

Click Here: Please visit our Sponsor

Become an Advertiser



All material Copyright ©2000-2024 MarathonGuide.com LLC (MarathonGuide.com). All rights Reserved.
Please Contact Us for more information.

MarathonGuide.com makes no representations as to the accuracy of information on this site or its suitability for any use. | privacy policy | refund policy