Victoria Barrera has the best excuse to skip the 40th Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday. She lost her Altadena home in the Eaton Fire. Her 8-year-old daughter’s school, Pasadena Rosebud Academy, also burned to rubble. What she saved from the fire fit in one bag and a shoebox.

Still, Barrera will be among the 26,000 at the starting line, and one of the 40% of runners tackling the 26.2 mile run for the first time.

“That’s the crazy part,” Barrera said two days before Marathon Day. Even after everything, “I knew in my mind and heart I was still going to cross that finish line.”

Born and raised in Pasadena, Barrera, 38, was driving home to pick up her daughter from CPG Gymnastics in that city when she exited the freeway and looked up.

“I saw the fire and I immediately turned on my panic mode, I had to get to my daughter,” she said. Driving past fallen branches and debris on the road, Barrera made it to the school on North Fair Oaks Avenue.

“It looked so unreal, the wind was so violent, and I was so frazzled, but I also knew as my daughter’s sole provider, as the sole caretaker, I knew we had to go,” Barrera thought on the drive home to El Molino Avenue and Mariposa Street.

She quickly packed what she could and drove away at 9:38 p.m.

“That was the last time we saw the Altadena that we knew,” she said.

The Palisades and Eaton fires collectively burned through about 40,000 acres of land and destroyed more than 15,000 buildings in January, according to Cal Fire. Aside from their home and school, gone are their favorite spots in town: Rhythms of the Village store, Echo Mountain trail and Café De Leche.

In the early days after the fire, mother and daughter stayed with Kimberlina McKinney and her daughter. Friends from the Run With Us club in Pasadena offered support, as well as the Pasadena Pacers, which held a clothing drive to equip runners with new shoes and clothes.

McKinney, who started a GoFundMe campaign for her friend, said mother and daughter still remain hopeful and strong.

Losing everything in the fire reminds Barrera of all she’s gone through before the inferno. Growing up in foster care, she persevered to make a life for herself. She works full-time in a dental office, and has two older children. She doesn’t have contact with her middle son.

“I knew if I could endure that, I could do anything,” she said. Barrera discovered running in 2018, loving it as a sport of endurance, something she knows too well.

She decided to run the marathon in October, getting in solid training until flames upended her life. Barrera isn’t sure now if she will make her 4:30 goal.  She’s just happy her oldest son will be waiting for her at the finish line.

“I only get to finish my first marathon once, so I’m taking in the view, each mile at a time and I’m just going to enjoy it,” Barrera said.

Meanwhile, Barrera is grateful to have found a new apartment in Lincoln Heights and to see Joyce thriving in her new school, Mayfield Junior School in Pasadena.

“In spite of everything, her smile is so innocent and so resilient, she’s been shining through all of this through God’s grace,” Barrera said. “It’s nothing but hope that’s keeping me holding on. Hope, the community, and God. I look to what will come from this. The fires destroyed tangible, earthly things, but that love, that richness, that togetherness, that’s what I miss most.”

In the long runs, the I-don’t-think-I-can-do-this runs, Barrera said her mantra comes from the Bible: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

“I hone in on those lines when my mind tells me one thing but my body is done,” she said. “That’s when I check in and kick it into gear and remind myself I have the strength. I have what I know now to be true: it will be okay. It already is.”

Barrera’s also got her sights set on her next race. The Rose Bowl Half Marathon and 5K, postponed because of the Eaton Fire, is rescheduled for April 27. She will be there, “right where my feet are. It brings forth the deepest gratitude.”

The run community hits the ground helping

On the morning the Eaton Fire sparked into an inferno, Michael Ramos, 48, sent a wind advisory warning to his running group’s 6,000-strong membership. As president of the Pasadena Pacers running club, he also canceled that evening’s hill and speed training sessions.

“I felt completely helpless knowing some of the Pacer members were being evacuated and, or, trying to save their homes,” the Azusa resident said.

As Wednesday dawned, revealing the scale of the devastation in Altadena and Pasadena, Ramos first offered a message of support, then helped set up a Pacers GoFundMe with member Rene Hartel. All scheduled runs were canceled as the news filtered in: 27 Pacer families either lost their homes or were displaced.

“I have been with the Pacers for 15 years and I have never been prouder than I was following the response to our fundraiser,” Ramos said. “The Pasadena Pacers raised over $20,000 in a week. We were able to help 15 families with the money raised.”

The Pacers returned to running on Jan. 18, meeting with its sister club, The Whittier Pacers. They then ran at their second home, Garfield Park in South Pasadena. By Feb. 1, the club was back at the Rose Bowl, which had returned to normal operations after it served as a staging area for first responders.

“We went from ringing in 2025 with our traditional Rose Parade Bandit Run to just a week later the Eaton Fires,” Ramos said. “The Pacers reacted with love, compassion, safety and generosity. It’s not over either. The rebuild of Altadena will be a long project and we will continue to stand with the families impacted by the Eaton Fire.”

Members who lost their homes or remain displaced are finding it hard to find housing nearby.

“Their lives have been completely flipped upside down,” Ramos said.

Gone too is Echo Mountain trail in Altadena, although the Pacers are grateful to have the trails they use from the Rose Bowl open: Lower Arroyo, Cherry Canyon, Upper Arroyo and Brown Mountain. In South Pasadena, Debs Pond is safe.

Pedro Rojas, 70, is a retired newspaper editor for La Opinión. He joined the Pacers in 2004, spying a sea of red shirts at the Rose Bowl.

“I got hooked,” he said. “Running makes me feel free and full of life. The bonding with fellow Pacers is a plus.”

Rojas evacuated his Pasadena home on Jan. 7 and said he has moved from hotel to hotel for a month until he found an apartment to lease in Monrovia while his house is reconditioned to living standards.

“Training while dealing with the catastrophe of the fire has been a tough challenge, but this year, I have been pacing the 10 minutes/mile group, and it has been like a balm to my spirit,” Rojas said.

This Sunday, more than 300 Pasadena Pacers are especially motivated to finish the 40th Los Angeles marathon. It’s a celebration of Los Angeles and their own diverse running community, which includes runners from all ethnicities, religions, genders and socio-economic backgrounds.

“Running is therapy,” Ramos said. “Whenever I cannot figure something out, I go for an hour run and things become clear. I also love the camaraderie among the runners. Unlike team sports there is no rivalry in running. It is just one big community of wonderful people.”