The race finally got under way at 8:30am. I had decided to try to maintain a 6:45 min/mile pace until we hit the turnaround point on 11th and San Vincente and then sprint to the finish as it would be all downhill from that point. Everything worked out exactly as I planned. The funny part is that around the 3 mile mark I just caught by what turned out to be the top female in the race. She drafted off of me for a while and then she mounted a pretty strong attempt to pull away near the 5.75 mile mark. She probably burned her last match at that point - she suddenly slumped and I blasted past her at around the 6 mile marker.

Got to say that the course was very cool and the weather was cooperating, except for the wind when we were running northbound on Ocean Ave.The only gripe that I had was the weird positioning of the water stations. Technically, there was a water station at around the 2.5 mile but it was setup to serve the 5k runners who were like 0.5 mile away from the finish. The 10k did not get a real water station until the turnaround which was the end of the 4th mile. I thought that it was a little too sparse for most people. The kids manning the water stations were a little under-trained to say the least too.

The last 0.5 miles were total chaos since the faster 10k people were essentially merging with the slower end of the 5k race and people were walking/jogging/crossing at will with no traffic control whatsoever. I had to dodge a few pairs of big people that were obstructing about 80% of the available space. In any case, I finished 19th overall with the gun time of 41:16.8. Not too bad for the first 10k.

Not much. If I'd trained specifically for the 10k, I might have gotten closer to a sub 40 run.

Yelling at the wife for not bringing my hoodie from the car :) She was gracious enough to give me her windbreaker.


I am going to try to run the SM 10k in May to see if this course can be better staffed. I really like the layout.