()March 14, 2008) — Last Sunday, after a long 26.2 miles, Sprint Club members crossed the finish line at the annual LA Marathon. After six months of training and hard work to prepare for the big event, they finally got to sport their LA Marathon medals with their million-dollar smiles. But they weren’t always all-smiles while running the painfully long route. “It was the most painful experience of my life!” sophomore Samantha Cismas said. ASB advisor and math teacher Susan Giatti organized Sprint Club two years ago with the intent of preparing students who were interested in running the marathon. She made a schedule for students in the club to comply by in order to be properly trained for the 26.2 mile run. During practice runs they started off with six miles, progressed to nine and eventually up to 20 miles. The training began in October and the students in the club met up religiously every Sunday at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, rain or shine. Each person had a different motivating force to run the marathon. “My family didn’t believe I could do it,” Cismas said. She wanted to prove to herself and her parents that she was capable but admitted that often times she wanted to quit. “Mrs. B. [Giatti] and Sos kept me through.” Though it was her second time, Giatti had other reasons for running again. “I’ve never been a runner, but you can do anything if you run a marathon. Mind over matter,” Giatti said. She said that it was harder the second time because she was familiar with the course and knew what to expect. Senior Armen Artinian trained excessively in preparation for the big day. Besides working out at the gym almost every day, he drank lots of Gatorade, protein shakes, and loaded up on carbs and protein bars. “It’s a rush,” he says of the marathon. “But it’s really scary because around the 19 th mile you just see people suddenly falling to the ground.” During the run, Artinian experienced a pain in his knee and took a quick pit stop at the 19 th mile, where his parents provided him with Gatorade and words of support on the sidelines. There they sprayed his knee with numbing spray to ease the pain. “I can’t even begin to explain how excruciating the pain was,” Artinian said. Despite the pain and sore muscles, Artinian said he’d do it again in a heartbeat. But many of the Sprint Club members don’t want to stop running after the marathon. Sophomore Sos Nazaryan plans on running another five mile run in April for a Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation (CCCF) run organized for cancer awareness. “When I crossed the finish line I thought I would feel more empowered, but then I just said ‘yeah’ with the Nike hand motion.” He psyched himself up for the run by personalizing his running bib to say “Boss” in place of his name. He said, “It symbolizes who I am.” After the event, physics teacher Zifard Aristakis invited the runners to her house for dinner and to celebrate completing the marathon. Members of Sprint Club include seniors Zohrab Markosyan, Armen Artinian, Leo Malekian, Ani Mkrtchyan, sophomores Sos Nazaryan and Samantha Cismas, teacher Susan Giatti and her sister, Sally Belderian, who had the fastest time with five hours and nine minutes. But some students decided to run on their own, like seniors Jordy Shadd, Claude D’netto and Matthew Zari.