While hitting the pavement across Los Angeles to train for the 2026 LA Marathon, one first-time marathon runner reconnected with the city he calls home while remembering his beloved grandfather every step of the way.

This Sunday, local model Christopher Lima will be among the more than 26,000 runners competing in the LA Marathon.

For him, training for the 26.2-mile course has been about more than endurance. The early-morning miles he’s been clocking around Los Angeles have become part of a much bigger journey.

Thousands of runners are getting ready for the LA Marathon. Lauren Coronado reports for the NBC4 News at 6 a.m.m on Mar. 6, 2026. 

Lima is running the marathon to honor his late grandfather, whom he lost to Alzheimer’s.

His 90-year-old grandpa was an immigrant from Brazil, and Lima told NBCLA that he taught him all about perseverance.

“Starting something hard and following it through to the end,” Lima said, recalling the important life lessons left behind by his grandpa.

Lima said his grandfather never ran a marathon, but he did something just as demanding: He showed up every day for his family.

“My grandfather was a family man, very devoted,” Lima said. “He taught us a lot about life, rolling with the punches, getting up again, again, again. That’s why I’m doing this.”

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Lima signed up for the 2026 LA Marathon last summer, partnering with the McCourt Foundation to raise money for awareness and research of neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.

He’s been training for the past six months, documenting every mile near local beaches, through LA neighborhoods, and through the city’s natural spaces.

While running, Lima began to rediscover his love for Los Angeles — an appreciation that, for him, had dimmed over time.

“It’s like I started seeing LA with a different lens,” Lima said. “Everything became bright.”

Those last few months before training for the marathon were dark for Lima.

“I just wasn’t as happy as I was when I first moved here,” he explained.

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Lima had been jet-setting between LA and New York for his modeling career and said he felt out of whack with his life in LA. He was lacking a connection with fellow Angelenos.

He almost decided to move — that is, until he started running.

“I started exploring new neighborhoods, connecting with new people, finding new restaurants and coffee shops,” Lima told NBCLA. “It pulled me out of that little LA bubble that I didn’t even know I was in. And that’s when I realized, sometimes it’s not your environment that needs to change, it’s how you move through it.”

Lima said he found family in the fellow runners hitting the pavement around the city’s 114 neighborhoods, from the hills of Silver Lake to the streets of Koreatown, from quiet residential blocks to bustling boulevards.

Mile after mile, the city has started to feel personal again.

“LA is a beautiful place,” Lima said. “There is certainly more to LA than certain cliques you can fall into.”

Training also gave Lima time to think.

To think about his grandfather, about his future, and about what home really means to him.

“If you want something greater, you still have to push,” he said.

By the time Lima reaches the LA Marathon’s finish line in Century City this Sunday, Lima said the medal will represent more than finishing a race.

“It’s a testament to not giving up. It’s easy to give up when it gets the hardest,” Lima said. “You can quit or change direction but sometimes you don’t, and you keep trekking that path and you get to that destination that you are looking for.”

As Lima reaches his destination at the end of those 26.2 miles, he’ll be carrying not only the memory of his grandfather, but a renewed love for the City of Angels. A victory in and of itself, indeed.