Running

The best-laid resolutions to get fit can quickly crumble with no plan in place and no budget for a personal trainer. Don't worry -- we asked fitness experts to map out monthlong strategies to jump-start running, cycling, swimming and strength-training programs designed to remove the confusion and intimidation many feel. We kick off this four-week series with a running program courtesy of Andrew Lockton ( www.andrewlockton.

It's 6 a.m. and Anthony Barr, perhaps the No. 1 running back in the state, is yawning as he leans against a mirror in the Los Angeles Loyola weight room and prepares for another morning of vigorous, all-out physical activity. At 6 feet 4, 230 pounds, with muscles that make him look like a fighting champion, Barr could be the poster child for the high school athlete who refuses to rest on last season's laurels. It seems a little unfair that some tiny defensive back might have to try to tackle the imposing Barr, but he's not about to feel guilty about using his size, speed and power.

He never ran a race he didn't think he could win, and Maurice Greene competed against time and age as valiantly as he could. His spirit was willing. But his muscles and tendons, taxed by years of propelling him out of the starting blocks and driving him faster than almost any human has run, would carry him no more.

You're at mile 20 in the marathon, feeling no pain, striding at a comfortable pace, wind at your back. Suddenly you feel a wave of fatigue so strong it's as if your body wants to melt into the pavement. Then comes a rush of dizziness -- and disorientation. You've hit the wall. The bane of long-distance runners and endurance athletes, the dreaded wall can derail the best marathon plans. But it's neither inevitable nor insurmountable.

The bear is still there. When Johan Otter runs through the city streets in Sunday's Los Angeles Marathon, he will do so in unmarked clothes, a gentle gait, seemingly very much alone. Yet he will have 400 pounds of company. The giant grizzly he once fought to protect his daughter will be felt with every step. "In many ways," he says quietly, "the bear never left." The grizzly will be there in the simple cap he wears on his head.

I just jogged past a bald guy carrying a tray of Starbucks coffee on Rodeo Drive. I slow down. Wasn't that Ben Kingsley? Nah. Gandhi wouldn't be schlepping coffee around on the street. A few blocks away, I slow to a trot again, at the corner of Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard, when I spot a gorgeous blond woman with big hair and a low neckline. Isn't she on "Desperate Housewives"? No, probably not. I'm on a group jog of L.A.'

Running is among the oldest of all competitive sports -- in fact, for the first centuries of the Olympics, it was the only sport in the games. Ancient Olympic competitors either sprinted or ran for distance, but the similarity to today's events end there. Ancient poets and writers tell tales of runners (barefoot, bare and slick with oil) tripping each other, cutting corners, pulling competitors' hair to get ahead and even of all-out fights erupting over who crossed the finish line first.

An 18-year-old Orange County man who vowed to run 200 miles in 48 hours to raise money for a children's hospital cut short his effort Saturday because, he said, his feet hurt. Jesse Zweig had started running about 2:30 p.m. Thursday to earn $20,000 in pledges for Children's Hospital of Orange County. The former El Toro High School cross-country and track athlete planned to end his quest at his Lake Forest home Saturday. "I always had good health, Zweig said last week while training for the run.

Three ultra-endurance athletes ran the equivalent of about two marathons a day for 111 days to become the first modern runners to cross the Sahara Desert's grueling 4,000 miles. "I would never consider crossing the Sahara on foot again," said American runner Charlie Engle, 44, hours after he and the others completed the run at the Red Sea. Engle, Ray Zahab, 38, of Canada and Kevin Lin, 30, of Taiwan ran through Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and Egypt.

More than a million spectators are expected to turn out Sunday to watch runners, walkers, bike riders and wheelchair racers swarm through the streets of Los Angeles. For race information, visit lamarathon.com. For traffic and street closure information, go to trafficinfo.lacity.org/html/marathon2007.html. Taking the tour The marathon route is new this year, providing participants a tour of some of the city's landmarks and highlights.