Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Marathon - RunMarathon

This was going to be my wife and my first marathon. We trained seperately and her strategy was to run 0.5 miles, walk a minute and repeat. My only goal on this run was to make sure she finished. :) We started out running with her friend that she trained with occasionally, but we lost her in the first mile. We stopped to find her but she waved us on, so we progressed. My wife was thinking she was going to take 6.5 hrs to finish and I told her no way. Maybe 5.5...We were on track through mile 20 for about a 5:15 finish. However, after the Mile 20 mark things started to really slow down. The run course on the sidewalk was crowded and seeing all the runners out on Fiesta Island was a bit depressing. My wife wanted to walk a bit more than the 1 minute, so we did. We kept running at a slow pace when we could and finally we had made it to the entrance to Fiesta Island. Thankfully the weather was as good as you could have asked for. We had a bit of wind out of the South, but the temps were perfect and no blazing sun. We walked a bit more on Fiesta Island and did some short running here and there. After we started South on Fiesta Island the wind was a bit stronger and we had to fight that. As we crossed the 25 mile mark I think we got a bit of pep in our step. Getting onto the last piece of of sidewalk where there were a lot of spectators my wife decided to push hard to the end. She suddenly looked pretty strong and ran all the way to the end. It was funny how we went back and forth with so many of the same people the entire race. You almost start to know them after 6 hours of running near them.

While a run/walk strategy is probably not my preferred choice of running plans, it worked to accomplish our goal of the day. I would have liked to run a few more long runs (only did up to 18 in training) and I need to be more diligent about running shorter runs during the week. Add in the fact that I didn't run at ALL between the RnR Portland 1/2 marathon and this one and there's a lot of improvement to be had.

Grabbed some water, G2, and anything else that we could grab. No chocolate milk for the slow marathoners. Reunited with other friends and grabbed some merch for my wife. Back to the hotel for a shower, nap and then a bit of hot tub.


The fact that a marathon is a really long way to run.


3399 out of 3712 (Men)

It was really cool to run my first marathon with my wife. I'm not sure we'd imagined we'd ever do this. She was pretty emotional after finishing and I was incredibly proud of her!