Surf City USA 1/2 Marathon (Formerly Pacific Shore - RunHalf Marathon


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Huntingron Beach, California
United States
Kinane Events
60F / 16C
Precipitation
Total Time = 4h 10m
Overall Rank = /
Age Group =
Age Group Rank = 0/
Pre-race routine:

Went to race expo on Saturday and got packet, chip, and coolmax race shirt. Wandered around the expo for a while, it was fun. (Note: Beautiful day, sunny, ocean breezes, perfect.) Didn't really buy anything though. My sister was supposed to do this race w/ me, but she hurt her leg so couldn't do the race.

Had sushi for dinner - mmmm, I love sushi. PS - Not trained at ALL for this race, so planned to walk as far as I wanted to and then quit.
Event warmup:

Got up Sunday morning, and noticed that the beautiful day of Saturday had done a Mr. Hyde into a really nasty, rainy, windy day. No prep on my part, no rain stuff, so rolled over and went back to sleep...

Uh, no. Panicked about getting soaking wet within first 5 minutes of getting out of car, sister luckily had jacket that would fit me (also luckily sis not doing race otherwise jacket would have been hers not mine.) Dressed warmly, ate breakfast, put on jacket, and sis drove me down there and dropped me off at race. She told me that she wasn't going to spectate cause her leg was hurting (I think it was cause the thought of standing in the soaking RAIN was not appealing.) No warm-up other than fidgeting around trying to stay warm and occasionally shaking tons of water off of the Really Awesome Waterproof jacket. Had on a baseball cap as well, which was another Very Nice Thing to have. Spent some time looking at all the other crazy people out there at 7:30 am, getting rained on. It looked like a garbage sack convention.
Run
  • 4h 10m
  • 13.1 miles
  • 19m 05s  min/mile
Comments:

I really was planning on DNF'ing this race. I wasn't trained, and not ready. Also, started a very low calorie diet, meant my energy wasn't up for doing a lot over the last week or so.

Start walking, wet, rainy, and windy, did I mention it was raining? It took me 2 miles to get warmed up, then started feeling pretty good. Saw the first 1/2 marathoners coming in, they were really fast.

Started talking to a guy in a gold heat metallic blanket, holding an umbrella. I swear, he was working just as hard to hold the umbrella as he was on walking, cause the wind was blowing pretty hard. He was on the ocean side and the wind was coming from there, so he'd keep moving over into me, then I'd move over. Finally figured out what was going on as I was ending up on the side of the road. Then just held my line which meant he was bumping into me about every 10 steps or so, which was getting irritating. About mile three and a 1/2, you go off on a 3 mile or so side trip. There were porta-potties there and he made a pit stop so I lost him. Nice guy, but the umbrella was just Too Much.

Anyway, decided I would do the side-trip part and then see how I was feeling - well, I was feeling pretty damn good for not having trained very much. At this point, I was walking some and slow jogging some. Somewhere in there the rain let up so it was just sprinkling instead of pouring and I just started having a really good time. (I think I'm an endurance junkie - seriously)

Well, I made it to mile 7, and at that point, I thought, why not finish. The course is out to about mile 8.5 and then you go straight back along the ocean. I was really enjoying watching the breakers rolling in on the beach on the way back. About mile 10 I was regretting my decision to finish, but man, only 5k to go I can do that - so I just kept going. It started raining again at mile eleven, but luckily it didn't last too long. I started slowing down a lot though, my feet were hurting a LOT. The people I passed all passed me back, but I finally made it to the end.

Yeah - Got the cool medal (a neat minature surfboard) and they took my chip, then kept walking over to where I was meeting my sis for the ride back to her place.
What would you do differently?:

Well, maybe train. Just a little you know.
Post race
Warm down:

Stretching out a bit, and a very LONG HOT shower. Rested some in bed, then just moving around a bit, etc.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Uh... training?

Event comments:

Well - they need to fix the weather - I mean, why couldn't it have rained on Saturday? Nice race. Crazy amount of people.




Last updated: 2008-02-05 12:00 AM
Running
04:10:00 | 13.1 miles | 19m 05s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/
Overall: 0/
Performance:
Course: Flat, along the ocean, with a little side trip.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Good
Mental exertion [1-5] 3
Physical exertion [1-5] 3
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Good
Race evaluation [1-5] 5