Vincent Stella said he has trouble focusing.
That, he said, is due to his autism. But when he’s running, he’s able to push that aside and just let his legs take him where he needs to go.
“It allows me to calm down,” Stella said. “Running is how I practically work through my autism.”
Stella was one of 248 Santa Clarita Valley participants in the L.A. Marathon held earlier this month. A few of them spoke to The Signal to talk about their experience, some having to overcome challenges along the way to cross the finish line.
Vincent Stella
A Trinity Classical Academy graduate, Stella, 19, was told by his mom, Alicia Stella, when he was 5 years old that he should join a track team. She said Vincent didn’t like that.
“He hated every single minute of it,” Alicia said.
He kept at it, though, and eventually ran cross country at Trinity. Being part of a team, Alicia said, was a boon to his confidence.
“He had friends and all of a sudden, it kicked in and he just started loving it more and more,” Alicia said.
Vincent loved it so much that he began training for marathons, with the most recent L.A. Marathon being the third one he’s completed.
“It’s just wonderful. You’re seeing all of L.A. and you’re just cruising through wherever the marathon is,” Vincent said.
Vincent finished this year’s marathon in 5:18:46, nearly 40 minutes better than his time from last year’s event.
The Stella family likes to travel, and Vincent has used that to his advantage, competing in marathons across the country, and beyond. His first marathon was in Portland, Oregon, and he’s also competed in one in Copenhagen, Denmark, while visiting family.
Because of his autism, Alicia said Vincent has trouble organizing his life and focusing. That means he doesn’t drive and instead runs to wherever he needs to go.
Vincent said he doesn’t have plans to stop running any time soon.
“My plan is basically to keep on running basically for the rest of my life,” Vincent said.
Ethan & Peyton Marquez
A Saugus High School senior, Peyton Marquez and his father, Ethan Marquez, competed in the L.A. Marathon as a pair. As Peyton is unable to compete himself due to him having Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Ethan trained himself to not only run the marathon, but also push Peyton through it as well.
“We’re running and we were talking about things we’re seeing and we talked about little things here and there, but it’s just a great experience,” Ethan said in a phone interview. “It just bonds you closer when you do something like that, and as I was within a couple of miles (of the finish line), I started getting a little emotional.”
The father-son duo has been preparing for the L.A. Marathon for a few months. The two competed in the Rose Bowl Marathon in Pasadena in January to test the wheelchair that Peyton would sit in while his dad ran and pushed.
“There was a lot of early-morning running before work and a lot on the weekends,” Ethan said, “going out and running anywhere from 9 to 13 miles, sometimes 15, and just spending a couple of hours doing that in the mornings.”
They finished the race in 4:08:13, good for 13th among all male wheelchair participants.
Peyton said it was an exciting time and something he’s looking forward to doing more often now that they know it’s something they can do.
“It’s a very easy bonding experience we can have by doing marathons and half marathons together,” Peyton said in a phone interview.
As Ethan ran through the course, Peyton would be checking that all of the cameras they had set up were working and making sure that his dad was staying hydrated and nourished. Peyton said his favorite part of the course was going through West Hollywood.
“It was so cool going through there,” Peyton said. “It’s a really pretty part of L.A., and especially with the sky, it was great weather. It was very cool to just go through West Hollywood like that.”
The Marquez boys have plans to take their talents to the international stage in the future, setting their sights on the Sydney Marathon in September.
And while they compete in marathons, they are also helping to raise funds for their charity, Peyton’s Project. They were able to raise $10,000 for the charity through the L.A. Marathon, and the funds go back to other families affected by muscular dystrophy.
“I came to a decision that we had to turn something that was really bad in something good and try to help other people. So, we raise money and a lot of the money goes to people that need a lot of things that insurance doesn’t cover,” Ethan said.
And now that they’ve gone through the experience of doing a marathon together, Ethan said he can’t see himself doing another without his son.
“I never want to run the L.A. Marathon without him,” Ethan said.
Amanda Hagen
As a woman in her 30s, Amanda Hagen began using a Peloton stationary bike a couple of years ago to stay in shape.
Now, she’s a veteran marathon runner and has made it an integral part of her life.
“I slowly just started doing a little bit of running, walking classes, and I just kind of kept progressing and progressing,” Hagen said in a phone interview. “I entered my first race and I did pretty well in it and then I just got the bug. I just continued to sign up for races and continued training and it’s become such a huge part of my life.”
Not competitive at the beginning of her journey, Hagen said she now tries to get the best time she can. She finished this year’s L.A. Marathon in 3:42:34, good for 35th among all females ages 35-39.
Hagen said she was going to run in last year’s marathon as well, but “kind of got cold feet prior to it.” She volunteered to help run the expo where the runners pick up their bibs and many vendors set up shop, and after seeing others live the experience, she said she had to try it.
“I signed up for a marathon a couple of months later, and I ran that and it was an amazing experience,” Hagen said. “And then I ran a second one this past February.”
As the mother of a son who spent some time at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Hagen chose the hospital as her charity, raising more than $1,200 to surpass the goal she had set.
“I just thought, ‘What a better way to marry something that I love so much, which is running, while raising money for an amazing hospital,’” Hagen said. “I couldn’t do it without the support of our friends and family that donated. It was just an all-around amazing day just to be involved in something so much bigger and such a sense of community.”
Hagen’s goal is to run in the Boston Marathon in 2025, which she said she qualified for in a previous race in February. After that, she wants to run in all of the major marathons across the world: New York, Tokyo and Berlin.
“Just to make it a travel thing and hopefully involve my family,” Hagen said. “As a mom, that was not my only job but the job that I had for my kids growing up, and so I’ve never had something for myself to set goals. So, to have this, and it’s something that I work really hard at every day.”
Ayden Buchanan
Valencia High School senior Ayden Buchanan is no stranger to running long-distance courses. Set to run cross country in college, Buchanan said he was running the first few miles like it was just any other race.
But at mile 6, Buchanan started to feel something wrong with his feet.
“I guess some blisters had formed on the bottom of my feet and I was going downhill and I felt a tear on my feet,” Buchanan said in a phone interview.
After another 4 miles, Buchanan said he looked down and saw that his shoes were bloody. He pushed through until mile 13 before going to a medical tent.
“I’m just trying to keep running and not stop, but I ended up having to stop at mile 13 to go to a medical tent, quickly get my feet taped up, get some Advil and then just keep running,” Buchanan said.
Even with his feet chafing and bleeding, Buchanan was able to finish the race in 2:41:29, the top time for males ages 16-19 and 16th overall.
“I was still able to somehow push through, because at some point during the race, like mile 13, I was thinking about dropping out just because it hurt so bad,” Buchanan said. “I didn’t want to keep running.”
The tape didn’t help too much, Buchanan said, but he knew that all the training he had done would have been for nothing if he didn’t finish. His time was the best he’s had in a marathon by 10 minutes.
His goal was to finish in the top 75, and he said he was shocked to see that he placed as high as he did.
“I did not know I was gonna run that good. Especially with what happened, I’m shocked about it,” Buchanan said. “I was just so happy with my performance. I was a little annoyed for a few days after, realizing I could have ran a lot faster.”
