Josh Cassidy overcomes latest challenge to win Los Angeles Marathon
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As if Josh Cassidy’s nearly seven minute victory in the 34th Los Angeles Marathon men’s wheelchair division Sunday wasn’t impressive enough, consider that it came on an hour’s sleep.
Cassidy’s racing chair broke while training in Griffith Park Saturday.
“Bit of a challenge yesterday,” Cassidy said. “My chair split in half. “Snapped at the front, nose dived, head first.
“So grateful I wasn’t going fast and so it was as scramble.”
Challenges are nothing new to Cassidy. He was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a form of cancer, in his spine and abdomen shortly after birth and was given a small chance of survival. After five years of remission, however, he was declared cancer free. But the cancer left him partially paralyzed in his legs.
Cassidy competed in two Paralympic Games and then won the 2010 London Marathon. His 1 hour, 18 minute, 25 second victory at the 2012 Boston Marathon is the fastest wheelchair marathon ever recorded.
But with less than 24 hours to race time Saturday, Cassidy didn’t have a chair to race in for the LA Marathon. He located a coach and his sister located a spare chair in Toronto and put it on a plane to Southern California with a friend. By the time Cassidy finished assembling the back up chair it was midnight.
“Got an hour a sleep, so I’m proud of this” Cassidy said of his 1:31:47 victory.
The Los Angeles course with its steep climbs and descents and a series of downhill turns is challenging for wheelchair races.
“The most technical course I’ve ever been on,” said Katrina Gerhard. “This definitely had a few more dangerous parts to it where if I hadn’t slow down quite a lot I definitely would flipped and rolled.”
Instead, Gerhard powered to a 1:56:22 victory and a nearly eight minute margin of victory in her Los Angeles debut.
Gerhard, a native of Massachusetts, attends the University of Illinois, which is also home to U.S. Paralympic Training Center. With pancake flat Champaign-Urbana covered in snow for much of the winter, Gerhard trained for Los Angeles indoors on a treadmill, cranking grade up and down to mirror Sunday’s course.
Top U.S. finshers
Former Penn State runner Tyler McCandless, now with rabbitPro, and Olympian Lindsey Anderson were the top American finishers in Sunday’s elite races.
McCandless, who now trains in Boulder under Steve Jones, the former world record-holder in the marathon, ran in 2:11:57, finishing 11th overall.
Anderson was the sixth woman overall, running 2:34:45.
Anderson was an NCAA runner-up for Weber State in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. She represented the U.S. in the steeple at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and in two World Championships.
After the 2009 Worlds, she retired and started a family, giving birth to a daughter in 2011 and a son in 2014. She remained in the sport as a coach, working as an assistant at her alma mater and Cal State Bakersfield. She is currently the head cross country coach at the College of Southern Idaho.
She returned to racing in part because of her children. Anderson was 12th at the Chicago Marathon last fall in 2:36:51 to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials.
“My children, I really I want them to go after hard things and not be afraid that they really set themselves up for and accomplish some fun things in their life,” Anderson said. “I don’t care if it’s running, I just want them to find something that they’re passionate about.”
While this was Anderson’s first LA Marathon she wasn’t lacking for knowledge about the race. Her coach Paul Pilkington won the 1994 Los Angeles Marathon.