I decided to run this race at the last minute while visiting my family in SoCal. Kinda sick that I can decide to run a half-mary the day before the race and not purposely train for it......the bizarre things that occur as part of IM training.

Did not have any specific goals for this race, other than not walk during it. PR is always on my mind but I had run the day before and didn't want to push anything too far, so I just ran as I felt.

I hit the first mile mark at 9:12, a bit fast for me but was feeling good, so I went with it. There was some downhill in the first mile so no biggie. Tons of people were passing me, after looking at the results, maybe they were all running the 5k instead of the half-mary?

For most of the run I just enjoyed the scenery and my iPod, yes it was an iPod legal race. At one point this guy started singing to himeslef out loud....f-in annoying!!! OMG, I could not get away from him!!! He was so loud he over-powered my iPod! Eventually he stopped at a porta-pottie and I was saved.

I passed a few aid stations and took water a few times, mostly just to swish in my mouth. I started to get some stomach cramps around mile 4-5 so I slowed a bit in hopes they would go away. Luckily they did. Wound up passing mile 6 in 54 minutes, I was pretty excited about my pace.

Had a bunch of Marines pass me that were running with flags, so cool! I tried to keep them in sight for most of the race, I succeeded for a few miles. Around mile 9 or so Sheri and passed eachother on the out-n-back, I was concentrating on the guy's calves who was running in front of me and almost missed seeing her. He must have been 3% bodyfat and had a perfect tan, lol.

At mile 11 I started ot feel my legs tighten, I guess the run the day before combined with the hills of the course was finally catching up to me. I told myself "no walking"! I kept pushing forward and of course the last .5 miles of the course are up-hill, not super steep but I felt like I was running in sand.

Finally made it up the hill and the crowd was there to welcome me to the finish line, yay! The bizarre thing...they were all shouting "go Ironman"! They were not shouting it just for me, but for all of the finishers. WTF!? Yes, completing a half-marathon is great, but as a triathlete and an Ironman.........running 13.1 miles is nothing compared to swimming/biking/running 140.6!



Not run the day before the race and maybe I would have set a PR, I was only 2 minutes shy of PR!

Walked around the expo and found my brother with the kids. Wacthed Maddie and Matthew do the kids race and got to see my sister-in-law finish.


Running the day before.


Very well organized race, would run this one again. Always nice to run in new places.