Surf City Half Marathon

Two weeks, two half marathons. This one made me nervous mainly because I now had a goal. Carlsbad was just about finishing. There was no real time goal attached to it other than to do better than I had at Disneyland last year. But for Surf City, Brenda and I had been talking, encouraging, planning our attack for her to hit a PR of under 2:00. I hoped to be able to keep up.

Waking up at 5am was much easier today. Made my usual prerace breakfast of oatmeal, but this time, I smashed up a banana in it. Jumped in the car to meet some friends at Edison High School who had the hook up on a starting line parking spot! Quickly ate a GU, then met up with some more friends to get this little Surf City Super Bowl Party started!

Me, Michele, Brandon, Brenda, Mike, Steve

The race conditions couldn't be more ideal. No gorgeous views of the ocean, but that cloud cover stayed the whole time. Would've been horrible to race in the heat today!

After we found our corral, we quickly spotted this guy! I joked saying "That's the goal!!"

The first few miles were nice and steady. If I started to go too fast, Brenda would remind me to slow back down. I spent a lot of time checking my pace on the Garmin, continually surprised by what I would see there, feeling pretty good.

Mile 6 was mentally hard. Those little games your body likes to play to tell you that your knees hurt (which they did), your calves are sore (which they sort of were)... But you have to tell the body it's just fine. I spent about a mile having a little mind-body "conversation" and then the body shut up and got back to the business at hand.

Mile 9, I lost Brenda. Started looking around and spotted her a ways back, I slowed down to wait for her, she told me how much she was hurting. The hills were killing her. I really think having Carlsbad under my belt two weeks ago as well as hiking Mt. Rubidoux made a HUGE difference for me in this area. For me, these were manageable. Within a mile, Brenda started dropping back again, but I also knew part of her plan was to slow down for miles 9-12, then kick it in for the last mile. So I was sure she was going to catch up and pass me at any time, especially since I was getting a little slower myself. I felt good enough to keep pushing to hold around 9:30/mile pace.

Mile 12 was my hardest mile. Suddenly, my legs were concrete. I had to focus really hard to keep moving through this mile. But I'll tell you why I LOVE races! Older gray haired man with a red shirt comes up beside me and says, "You go girl! Knock knuckles with me!" We knocked fists, and he said, "You're doing great! Keep it up!" And then he continued on ahead. I watched him. He didn't stop to do this with anyone else. How did he know that was EXACTLY what I needed?? Awesome!!

It was hard today, but nothing good ever comes easy. I couldn't believe I was able to hold a relatively steady pace for 13 miles. Yes, I definitely slowed down at the end, but nothing like what happened at Carlsbad. This was a much more consistent run. I didn't have the severe cramping that I did in Carlsbad, although I did have one foot cramp near the very end.

Here's the breakdown by mile:

Mile 1: 8:40
Mile 2: 8:36
Mile 3: 8:31
Mile 4: 8:47
Mile 5: 8:49
Mile 6: 8:51
Mile 7: 9:05
Mile 8: 9:05
Mile 9: 9:18
Mile 10: 9:34
Mile 11: 9:40
Mile 12: 9:17
Mile 13: 9:48

No stops for wardrobe changes. I ate 3 Shot Bloks at mile 5, and grabbed water at about miles 6 and 11. And was SHOCKED when I looked at my Garmin at the finish line to see 1:59 on it... Unfortunately, I didn't stop it right, so then I was sure it had just been a mirage.

Post race refueling! Could NOT have run this strong today without this girl!!

Official Mirage Confirmation:

PRs feel really good! Now, 1:45 is the goal!!