La Jolla Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

Felt good at the start. Goal was to do better than Carlsbad on what I expected (rightly) to be a more challenging course. Decided, sort of on the fly, to start with slightly sub-10 minute miles. Did some visualization in the first mile -- which is totally not my personality to do -- imagining how great it would be to finish faster than my last half mary, and how proud I'd feel. Not sure what motivated this, but it felt right at the time.

The pace felt right, so picked it up a tic, thinking I'd just go by HR and just make sure not to redline for too long at a stretch. Knew there'd be hills, so wanted to pick up time, on the one hand, and to not burn out early, on the other. Was still feeling pretty good over the hill at around mile 3ish.

The good news about hilly courses is the downhills. Surprised myself how good I felt on those. Took them much faster than I do in training (the hill training I appreciated, btw), and was able to gain time and lower HR at the same time. Nice.

Went down appreciating the beautiful ocean views and I approached the Torrey Pine hill. Yep, that looked daunting, as expected. Marveled a bit that so may people seemed to be running up that bad boy. As I got there, I felt fairly strong. Jogged a fair bit until my HR started to get squirrely. Did some power-walk/jog, with the walking til my HR got back down to 170 before jogging again. I think I jogged more than most of my 10 mpm brothers/sisters, and my natural walking pace is faster than some folks jog, so the hill was more of a positive than negative experience. Was pretty beat at the top, started into a normal/slowish jog, and hoped my body would recover a bit.

Fortunately, it did, and after a mile of getting back into it, I was able to pick things up again. I'm interested to see my splits during this portion. Began walking during every other water stop around here, but mostly kept it smooth.

At about mile 10, the big decline came, and I cruised that mile to mile 11 well above pace. I remember thinking that I felt pretty good, overall, until about mile 9, and this mile felt like a freeby.

The fatigue started to set in between miles 11 and 12. Kept going, and was proud of that. Pace wasn't blazing, but I kept moving; was a bit worried with my HR staying around 180 here and thereafter. The last hill came, and I mostly jogged it, though I did walk more than I wanted to. Probably my main mental breakdown came there.

At the top, I knew just where I was, and opened it up again, knowing I didn't have much further to go, with most of it down hill. Nice crowd at the Cove, and I finished fairly strong. Sort of hoped, though I'd told them not to come, that the family would surprise me at the finish.

Not much. Did 6 mins faster than Carlsbad in late January on a significantly harder course. Gratifying. Still a long way to go to get my sub-2 hour goal, but progress nonetheless.

Afterward, just b-lined it to the bus for the drive back to Del Mar.


Mostly, I think I'm not putting enough tempo in my run workouts. Lots of long slow miles, but my body isn't prepared for much sustained speed. Partly, that's intentional. It's part of my year plan to build now, but if this was my A race for the year, I would have been better served having done that.


Beautiful run, with a nice hill to keep things interesting/challenging. Would definitely do again.