God bless on this !! How many came to Christ at this event.
jd
-------------- Original message --------------
From: Kevin Deegan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sometimes you just dont know the will of God, but at the end of the
> day one can connect the dots and your eyes are open. Sunday was the
> yearly Los Angeles marathon and we hit it a few locations.
>
> On a side note, you do not go to hell if you run the marathon, most of
> these people are normal, disciplined folks that eat and live right,
> nevertheless sinners that need Jesus Christ. At this event we do not
> fly anti-sodomite or God hates sin banners nor do we hold those
> abortion signs, just the basic Gospel as the (over 25,000) runners are
> exhorted to run the Christian race. We had a team at the start and
> finish, another team at the five mile mark and I stood (solo) at the
> one mile mark (on Figueroa and Martin Luther King). I took that
& gt; location because you could see the banner for blocks right in front of
> you before the runners make a right on MLK and location is paramount at
> an event like this. Well, as fate or GOD will have it two runners died
> and another had a heart attack during the run (see story below). Oh
> yeah, one last thing .my banner that I flew said PREPARE TO MEET THY
> GOD
>
> >From the WATCHTOWER:
>
> Ruben
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
> Exuberance of L.A. Marathon Tempered by Runners' Deaths
>
> Two men suffer fatal heart attacks along the 26.2-mile route. Another
> who collapsed is hospitalized in critical condition.
>
> By Cynthia H. Cho and Sandy Banks, Times Staff Writers
> March 20, 2006
>
>
>
> The weather was perfect, the field enthusiastic, the times respectable,
> but Los Angeles' annual street party masquerading as street race wa s
> marred Sunday by the deaths of two runners and the collapse of an
> elderly man who was hospitalized in critical condition.
>
> Two retired law enforcement officers died after collapsing on the
> route. Det. Raul Reyna, 53, suffered a heart attack at mile 24 near
> Olympic Boulevard and
> Westmoreland Avenue
> , two miles short of the finish line. He died at Good Samaritan
> Hospital. The 28-year Los Angeles Police Department veteran had worked
> on the use of force investigation team at Parker Center, officials
> said.
>
>
>
> Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy James Leone, 60, collapsed
> at mile 3, near Exposition Boulevard and Figueroa Street. "He just
> dropped keeled over and hit his face on the pavement," said David
> Lawson, who interrupted his own run to administer CPR to the fallen
> runner.
>
> "His face was covered with blood and his eyes were open, but we neve r
> really got a pulse," said Lawson, a private pilot who volunteers part
> time on a ski patrol team. He and another runner, a physician, spent
> several minutes trying to revive Leone before paramedics arrived, said
> Lawson, who then resumed his run. Leone was pronounced dead upon
> arrival at California Hospital Medical Center.
>
> Sheriff's officials said Leone was participating in his 11th L.A.
> marathon. He was a 26-year member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
> Department and had retired in July 2000.
>
> Lt. Fred Corral of the Los Angeles County's coroner's investigation
> division said Leone, who lived in St. George, Utah, had been under a
> doctor's care and may have suffered from cardiovascular disease.
>
> He was accompanied to the marathon by his wife and daughter. Marathon
> officials said this was the second time in the 21-year history of the
> race that there had been a fatality along the cours e.
>
> The only other known death during the Los Angeles Marathon came in
> 1990, when a 59-year-old Altadena man under a doctor's care for
> hypertension suffered a fatal heart attack while running in the fifth
> annual race. William McKinney, who had trained for the contest under a
> physician's care, suffered heart failure at the 21-mile mark near
> Crenshaw and Pico boulevards.
>
> Just nine blocks into the race Sunday, a third runner, believed to be
> in his 70s, suffered a heart attack near the intersection of Figueroa
> and 15th streets. The man, whose name was not released, was taken by
> paramedics to California Hospital Medical Center, where he was in
> critical but stable condition Sunday night.
>
> The tragedies unfolded unnoticed by most runners.
>
> More than 25,000 competed in the marathon, and 20,000 participated in
> the wheelchair race, bicycle run or companion 5-kilometer race. Open to
> all comers, the marathon has no qualifying requirements.
>
> Race purists were captivated by the to-the-wire competition between
> elite men and women runners for a $100,000 bonus given to whoever
> crossed the finish line first. Russian Lidiya Grigoryeva won that
> distinction though her time was 17 minutes slower than the men's
> winner, Benson Cherono of Kenya, because women were given a head start
> intended to equalize their chances in the novel challenge competition.
>
> Thousands of other runners considered themselves winners just because
> they finished.
>
> Sixteen months ago, Liz Roark weighed 323 pounds. A nurse, she got
> winded just walking down a hospital corridor. Gastric bypass surgery
> enabled her to lose 100 pounds, and eight months of training for the
> marathon helped her drop 65 pounds.
>
> She ran Sunday's marathon with two friends, fellow gastric bypass
> patients Keri Zwerner a nd Luana Ball. The trio has lost a combined 500
> pounds in the last five years. They had to skip the typical pre-race,
> carbo-loading routine; the gastric bypass process rules out big pasta
> meals. But the women filled their fanny packs with bite-sized snacks,
> along with such essentials as water and cellphones.
>
> Perseverance meant more to Roark than speed, as evidenced by her mascot
> a green turtle emblazoned on her white cap. It took her more than
> seven hours to run the 26.2-mile course.
>
> Many of the runners were accompanied by friends. At the 15-mile marker,
> 30 men, women and children from Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church
> in El Monte gathered beneath a cabana-style tent to cheer on 57
> parishioners running in glowing lime-colored shirts.
>
> Among the runners was their diminutive 64-year-old priest, Father
> Francisco Vitela, participating in his sixth marathon. Each year, the
> church's runners line their sneakers up along the altar and Vitela
> blesses them with holy water.
>
> Vitela, who says he "hates running," listens to classical music on a
> headset as he runs and prays that more people will join the ministry.
> During a stop in the tent, parishioners fed him, massaged his legs,
> removed his shoes and changed his orthopedic socks. A few minutes
> later, he was back on the course. A few hours later, he would be
> celebrating evening Mass at the church.
>
> The race route was designed to showcase the city's architectural and
> cultural glory. It begins in the shadow of downtown high-rises and
> winds through neighborhoods in Koreatown, Little Ethiopia, the Crenshaw
> District and Hancock Park, passes along Museum Row and ends at the
> venerable Central Library.
>
> Along the route, hundreds of volunteers pass out drinks, snacks and
> encouragement. At the start, they are charged with cleari ng away piles
> of banana peels, paper cups, granola bar wrappers and garbage bags
> donned to ward off the early morning chill. Discarded sweatshirts are
> collected and swept into giant trash bags, then donated to charities.
> At the finish line, volunteers pass out medals, escort exhausted
> runners from the course and even massage aching legs and feet.
>
> For many runners, the race was a chance to enjoy a Los Angeles they
> never see. "The city is just beautiful," said Joan Frieden, 60, of
> Pasadena, who finished in 5 hours and 35 minutes. "You really see the
> different ethnicities of the city because everyone comes out. It shows
> you what this town is all about."
>
> But one teenage runner got another view of this town one that shook
> her up but didn't throw her off course. Seventeen-year-old Erika Stern
> was parking her car at the Universal City Red Line station shortly
> after dawn so she and a friend could take the subway to the marathon's
> start when a gun-wielding man approached them and demanded her car. She
> gave him the keys and he drove off.
>
> She called her parents, but wouldn't let them come and get her. "She
> was crying, really frantic," said her father, Mark Stern. "But all she
> could think of was that she had to get to the race on time." She even
> asked the police officers who took her crime report if they could ferry
> her to the starting point. They weren't able to, so she hopped onto the
> subway and made it in time for the race's start.
>
> Her parents had planned to drive down and meet her at the 10-mile mark.
> "It never occurred to us that something like this could happen," Mark
> Stern said. "We're just glad she was so brave, and so smart."
>
> A cross-country runner and student body president at El Camino High in
> Woodland Hills, Erika who is only 4 feet 9 took the interruption in
> s tride. In fact, she bettered her marathon time from two years ago by
> almost 40 minutes, finishing in 4 1/2 hours. Credit the adrenaline
> rush.
>
> Running the marathon almost made her forget her fright, she said.
> "Running makes me feel so good. There's nothing I'd rather do. And the
> marathon is such an amazing experience, I didn't want to miss it for
> anything. Now, I just hope they find my car."
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-marathon20mar20,0,4363354.story?coll=la-
> home-headlines
>
>
>
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