The Great Race of Agoura Hills - Chesebro Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

Start of the race is a short screaming downhill on a residential street, then things level out for about 2.5 miles on the roads. Without my trusty speedometer Garmin 205, I was hoping I was at about 7:15-7:20 initially (plan was to avg about 7:20 on the roads, 8:20-8:30 on the climbs, 7:00-7:10 on the late descents). Got to first mile marker at 6:55 and muttered "Too fast" to myself. Next two splits were right where I wanted to be, though: Right at 7:20/mile. Found a couple likely candidates to pace off of and settled in. Knew some tough trail climbs awaited and really monitored my breathing carefully. Felt good to know that I could still set the pace I wanted without the Garmin 205 (after relying on it so much over the last year).

First part of the trail section went great. None of the climbs were very challenging and the fire road was wide enough to easily pass or be passed (and, here, I was doing more of the former than the latter). Feet were holding up okay in the new orthotics. Only took water from mile 3 station at trailhead and otherwise drank from my bottles. Took a GU at about 40 minutes in...five minutes earlier than usual, but I could sense I was going to be needing the fuel.

After mile 6, the whole character of the course changes; you head off the fire road and onto backcountry singletrack trail with more frequent--and steeper--climbs. Much harder to pass here. I felt like I was doing well, but I was starting to have to hop from one side of the trail to the other over ruts and that was taking a big toll on both my arches.

When I hit the first serious exposed rock climb, I questioned the wisdom of racing this. I just didn't have the ability to push off with the ball of either foot; I was having to flatfoot my way up the steepest, rockiest, sections and now the other middle-aged runners who were more hardcore trailrunners than me were starting to pass me.

The summit at just past mile 8 is daunting. You can see the two switchbacks leading to the top well before you get to them. Up where I was, in the top 125 runners or so, I only saw one person walking, but you could see pretty much everyone slowed to a crawl near the top. Getting to the summit was murder. I had the stamina, but my feet were really starting to scream, esp. my chronically-bad left arch, which was strained and developing a hot spot at the edge of the orthotic. In any case, for all the pain (and temptation to walk...which I do...not..do), my goal was to summit at ~64:00 and I hit the top at :65:15, so in the big picture, I was doing okay.

Got over the top and down the last short stretch of singletrack and started to open up on the big descent along the fire road. And, man, were the hardcore trail junkies screaming past me! Mountain goat DNA...that's the only explanation. Soon I found myself in no-man's-land...the FOP had left me, but I had no one behind me. Ate my 2nd GU and started to try to settle into a satisfactory pace.

Just when you think the race is settling into a gradual downhill there's one last beeyotch of a hill. At this point, a much younger guy had just come up on me and passed me, but I left him on the hill. It's really interesting how much I tend to pass people on hills in general, both climbs and descents. He eventually caught me near the finish...because...

Leaving the parkland for the last two miles on city streets, I opened up full throttle down one last big downhill and passed a couple people. Change in stride really helped my arches. But then I got to the last mile and a half. Uggh. Torture. I normally put up big negative splits the last three miles, but I just had no push in either foot. I wasn't exactly shuffling (I was doing about 7:45/mile), but I just couldn't sprint...once again I had to flatfoot it and really work my quads and core. Felt like everybody was passing me in the last mile...certainly at least ten people did, which just hasn't ever happened to me before.

In the final stretch, I looked at my watch and saw I was only 55 seconds away from 1:45, which was my goal, so I mustered up whatever I had and pushed into the park where the finish line was...ahh...grass! Crossed in what my watch said was 1:44:36...official results have me at 1:44:47, but they don't make sense, since they have my gun and chip times as the same and I was easily 10 seconds back from the starting line. So I'm calling it 1:44:47 (since my watch time wouldn't have changed my O/A or AG placements), but I'm sure my watch was right in this case.

Different footwear. I wore Brooks Addictions and my new orthotics, a combination I'd tested with an 8.5 mile run at HM pace on Tuesday and seemed fine. However, neither the Addictions nor the orthotics allowed enough flex to handle the rocky climbs. Should probably have rolled the dice and gone with my old Adrenaline 7s with my off-the-rack RoadRunner inserts and hoped that my arches held up without the added support.

Had promised Liz I'd retrieve my phone from the car after I finished so she could call me if needed after her race. So I walked 10 mins. to the car. Then 10 mins. back to the expo. Walked around the expo. Drank some water. Finished the G2 in my bottles. Then watched for Liz to finish. She came in a little later than I expected, but I found out she'd needed a pit stop. ;)

We hung around the expo and grazed on the various gimme drinks and snacks. Line for pancakes was just too brutally long to bother with.


See above for injury part of the story.

Other than that, I don't do trail specific training and this is only the second trail race I've done since HS cross country 32 years ago. Given all that, I think my just a whisker under 8:00/mile performance at my age is pretty good and I'm resisting a sense of disappointment.


This is a venerable trail HM that is part of the 25 year old "Great Race of Agoura Hills" event, which also includes a 10K, a 5K, a kid's mile, a family 1-mile fun run, and a second (road) HM--which was new in 2009. Thousands of runners of all ages and a big expo. Great finishers medals for the two HMs and the kid's mile.

Only gripe had to do with parking: I had a plan for parking near the start, but volunteers with flashlights directing cars into a different lot derailed that plan. I ended up about five minutes farther away than I planned (which sucked at the end of the day)...walking by the lot I planned to park in, I saw plenty of empty spots, but it was too late to go back to my car and move it closer. Don't know what was up with the volunteers, but I talked to others who had the same experience and were pissed about the added (and unnecessary) walk.