Getting Psyched for the L.A. Marathon

With less than a month to go until the Los Angeles Marathon on March 14, veteran runners and walkers are not only squeezing in their final training sessions, but also calling up the mental strategies that have helped propel them to the finish line.

Everyone who’s finished the 26.2-mile course seems to have a trick, a tip, a secret strategy that has helped them put one foot in front of the other.

For Michael Pohlenz, 42, a Culver City mechanical engineer who will be running his fifth L.A. Marathon, the secret is remembering the event is first and foremost for fun, not to set records. “People get into the racing aspect too much,” he says. “Speed isn’t the point.” Pohlenz hopes to finish in less than three hours this year, but if he doesn’t, he doesn’t. Better, he says, to finish, have fun and savor the bits of humanity observed along the way.

“In 1993, the temperature was close to 100,” he recalls. “Some of the water stations had run out of water. So the citizens along Exposition Boulevard raided their refrigerators and came out with ice cubes and water.”

Some spectators, he finds, are not only nurturing, but also vocal supporters. “If you put your name on your shirt, people will cheer for you by name,” Pohlenz says.

And if all else fails, he focuses on the feeling he’ll have once he crosses the finish line. “It’s very emotional. I’m usually crying. It feels so good to finish. And it feels so good to stop.”

Before Sharlene Wills even starts the race, she too is thinking about the finish. “One of the biggest things for me is getting the finishing medal around my neck,” says Wills, 51, a West Los Angeles legal stenographic reporter. “First I listen and hear the jingle of the medal,” says Wills, who has been blind since birth. “Then I hear the cheering of the spectators.”

Wills will run this year’s event--her 10th L.A. Marathon, 25th overall--with guide Luis Martin, and wants to finish in five hours. Because of her blindness, she pays special attention to things other runners might not even think about. “I will seek out smells, such as pine trees, and try to guess what mile of the course I am on. I’m also a blatant eavesdropper. Some of the conversation is very interesting. It can get very personal.”

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When the going gets tough for Pamela Christensen, 57, safety director for Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, she looks for a runner nearby who is doing even more poorly.

Then she encourages that runner, sometimes all the way to the finish line. “Playing coach to someone else can help,” she finds. “I’ve had many opportunities to do that. I’ve taken at least three guys, much younger than I, across the finish line. They felt they were ready to give up.” But Christensen, who has completed 10 marathons overall, just kept talking to them and spurring them on. Her pep talks made dropping out seem inconceivable. “At the end, they thanked me.”

The support of the friends he trains with--and runs with on race day--helps Ed Cogert, a 66-year-old Encino construction consultant. But so does his grandfatherly sense of pride. “My seven grandkids know I’m doing this and I’d better not go home without a finishing medal,” Cogert says about next month’s marathon, his fifth overall. A decade ago, after being diagnosed with heart disease, he began exercising under the supervision of his cardiologist, first walking, then jogging.

Cogert and Wills weren’t the only ones to mention the power of the medal given out to every finisher. “That medal is like a crown,” says Priscilla Franklin, 46, of Ventura, who walked last year’s marathon in 7 hours, 38 minutes. “Last year, I wore mine to work for a week.”