You’ve heard all about drinking in L.A. But what about running in L.A? What might that be like? Well, that’s something Theo Weaver and his dad Sean can now tell us all about as they have done it. And they’ve done it on the grandest of scales, alongside close to 22,000 others in the Los Angeles Marathon.

The route starts out at Dodger Stadium and finishes on the Avenue of the Stars in Century City. It passes through some iconic locations, including Chinatown, Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

It’s not really a fast, flat marathon as there are quite a few testing climbs along the way and an elevation gain of close to 1,000ft. That makes it significant tougher than a lot of the big city marathons around the world. Theo and Sean though, both members of Bournemouth AC, were very much up for the challenge though and were keen to throw themselves into it.

It was to be Theo’s first ever marathon as well, so what a one to choose for your debut at the distance. After tearing his anterior cruciate ligament in January, Theo feared that he wouldn’t be able to run. That meant he didn’t quite get the mileage he was expecting to but when it came round to the day of the race, he was ready for it, as was Sean.

Starting off at a sensible pace, Theo and Sean were going at just under 9 minutes per mile. That tactic paid off as they were able to maintain the pace for the first 20 miles. The last 10k is often when it starts getting tough in a marathon and that proved to be the case for Theo and Sean.

Although their pace slowed a bit to around 10:30 minutes per mile, they hung in there and battled on through till the end. That led them to a finishing time of 4 hours 8 minutes and 33 seconds for Sean and 4:08:35 for Theo.

That put them in 16,745th and 16,746th places overall. It was a fantastic effort by the pair of them and for a first marathon, it was a great result for Theo. Most importantly of all though, it was a great memory for Theo and Sean to treasure and one they will no doubt look back on with immense pride.