Hi, I’m Robert. When I was 14, the 1984 Summer Olympics had the marathon as an event and part of the course ran near my residence. I remember cheering on the runners and wondering if I could ever do that, I thought to myself someday I will run a marathon. Flash forward to 2005, I attended the Los Angeles Marathon expo. I wasn’t a participant but I was inspired by all the people that were getting ready to set off on this journey. I remember seeing the Legacy Runners and I thought they were so amazing. That year, I set out to run my 1st marathon and I had no idea what I was doing. I think I did everything wrong. Lack of training, not hydrating properly, chafing places I didn’t know you could chafe, the list goes on. I practically crawled in and thought to myself, never again! But then....I decided to run the Los Angeles Marathon a few months later. Again, there were many things that I was doing wrong but the biggest factor was, I did not respect the distance. I was going into these races with minimal training. Since then I have become much better at training, traveled across the country, lost 70 pounds, made many new friends, all because of running. I have completed 62 ultra-marathons, 181 marathons, 482 half marathons. I’m a proud member of the Marathon Maniacs and the Half Fanatics. Between now and January 15, 2023, I’m planning to run 17 more half marathons so that I can complete my 500th half marathon at the Rose Bowl Half Marathon. Follow me on IG @rmanon to see which races I’ll be running and say hi if we’re on the course together. #LAMarathonAmbassador #LAMarathon #Makeadifference