Ryan and I decided we would go down to the Expo on Friday
night. They had it going on both Friday and Saturday. We figured, since we get off
early on Fridays from work, and because we wanted Saturday as a ‘lazy’ day, we
would shoot for Friday as the Expo Day.
The Expo was down at the San Diego Convention Center. The
area to pick up bibs and swag was large and open – which was nice, especially
when it got busy, I'm sure. It was a quick pit stop to pick up everything I
needed. The Expo itself was HUGE. I think it took up two or three of the
Exhibit Halls. There were a TON of vendors and booths set up. Ryan and I
meandered through most of the rows and isles picking up free goodies and taking
fun pictures.
Sunday morning started EARLY. And by early I mean 3am EARLY.
One of the awesome perks of living in San Diego County was that they had the
trains running early for the race – which was AMAZING. Earlier in the week I
had asked some folks if they would suggest driving or taking the train. I was
told that the course was changing this year, so not only would there be 30,000
runners and probably 60,000 spectators downtown, but they wouldn’t really know
where they were going. We quickly decided that the train would be early, but well
worth it.
The train was leaving the Oceanside Transit Station at
4:10am – they had to make sure they were down to San Diego in time for the full
marathon (which started at 6:15am, 30 minutes before the scheduled start of the
half). We left our place by 3:45am, but probably could have waited a little
longer, seeing as it only took about 3 minutes to get to the train station (but
I would ALWAYS rather be early than rushing). We got on the train, found our
seats and waited a bit for the train to pull out of the station.
By Carlsbad and Solana Beach the train had really filled up.
There were runners and spectators standing in the isles because it was so full.
I was actually surprised it was so full, especially because they said that the
train tickets might sell out, so I figured they would only sell enough for the
number of SEATS on the train.
They had us get off at the Old Town Station and then take
‘shuttles’ over to the start. The shuttles were actually big greyhound
buses. They had everything pretty well organized. We walked off the train (with
the cattle herd), went over and got right on a bus. They had lines and lines of
shuttles. We were on the first round of buses, so I don’t know how many rounds there ended up being,
but it seemed to run pretty seamlessly.
We got down to the starting area with plenty of time
(although Ryan was bummed about all the extra time we had, since he would have
rather been sleeping, I was glad that we had time to check out the
surroundings, use the port-o-potties, etc). They had UPS doing the bag check,
which I thought was awesome. I didn’t check anything, but I thought the idea
was a great one. They had a ton of UPS trucks that were labeled by last name.
The UPS trucks were able to drive to the finish area (since the start and
finish were not close by each other) and have all the gear safely packed away.
I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised, I mean moving packages form one place to
another is what UPS does J.
They opened the corals for the full marathoners 30 minutes
prior to the race start. I thought I read somewhere that there weren’t going to
be corals or a wave start for the full marathon, but I guess I was wrong. They
let the corals go about every 3-5 minutes. Once everyone was on the course for
the full they let the half marathons start entering the corals.
Here is where I have my first CON for the race. No one was
checking or monitoring the corals. Your race bib number notated which coral you
were in. I had a bib number in the 5,000s, so I was in coral 5. Now mind you,
this is my first NON-runDisney half marathon, so I am used to the way they run
their events. I was very surprised though, seeing how big and ‘prestigious’ the
event is. When folks don’t obey the coral it really messes with the system.
People were WALKING right out of the 'gate', which means you have to do a lot of
weaving. When people obey the coral placement the faster folks are up front and
the slower folks are in the back and the flow of the race runs smoothly.
The race started about 10 minutes late because they were
giving late coming marathoners time to make it across the start line (if they
didn’t cross the start line by a set time they would have to run the HALF
instead of the FULL – I guess it was because of the time limit on the course
and having to re-open roads and such).
The course was pretty fun. The main reason I liked the
course was because it went by where I used to live. I LOVE Hillcrest, Normal
Heights, and all of those surrounding areas. We ran by the grocery store I used
to walk to, the coffee shop Ryan and I used to play games at, the restaurants
we would ride our bikes to for brunch, etc.
The first mile I knew I was going too fast. My time was
about 8:15 or so. I knew I would have to slow down. The second and third miles
were extra slow (my shin was a little tight so I slowed way down) – closer to 9:30
minute miles. At that point I threw my PR, personal record, out the window. I was really hoping
to have my fastest half marathon time yet at this race, but once I saw my pace
for the first three miles I decided I wasn’t going to stress about it. I
decided to just run the race thanking God for the ability and opportunity, but
not push myself too hard. After those first three miles I didn’t really look at
my pace. I would check my watch to see the distance every so far but wasn’t
really watching the time or pace.
Here is where I have my second CON for the race. The mile
markers were NOT clearly marked. Again, maybe it is because I am used to the
runDisney races, but I was surprised they didn’t make a bigger deal out of the
mile markers (not that they needed characters at them, although that would have
been fun J). Around mile 6 or 7 I realized that they only had the mile markers on
the right hand of the course. I don’t know if that was because they could only
afford one per mile or what, but I think I missed seeing every one of the mile markers for
the first half of the race. This wasn’t a big deal since I wear a Garmin and it
gives me the distance, but for folks that are depending on the markers to gauge
their run it would have been a bummer.
Here is where I have my last CON for the race. Along with
the mile markers only being on the right hand of the course, the water (and
Gatorade if applicable) was only on the right hand of the street. This was an
issue for the first couple water stations – mainly because I was running on the
left hand side of the street and therefore missed them. Then when I would
actually get water at the station on the right, that side of the course was so
full (and littered with the empty cups). Of course I am comparing this to
Disney, who seems to go above and beyond with their volunteers, accommodations,
etc, but I was pretty disappointed to see the lack of liquids.
I had overheard some folks on the train talking to some
other runners and mentioned that they had actually driven the course the day
before (they said they didn’t want any surprises). They said that the people
that laid out the course must have been looking out for us. They said that you
could see uphills ahead, but then we would turn the corner to avoid them.
There were quite a few turns on the course (weaving through neighborhoods and
such), but I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of uphills (especially since
I had run the Hot Chocolate 15K a few months back and felt like the WHOLE RACE
was uphill). There was a fairly steep downhill around mile 10, which was nice,
since it gave us a little boost to cruise into downtown.
At this point I checked my watch and realized that I was
still doing fairly well (compared to what I was expecting when I decided to
just run the race without paying attention to my splits). I thought I would try
to push it and see if I could still hit my goal time. (My previous PR, personal
record, for the half marathon distance was 1:58:53, which I got at the
TinkerBell Half Marathon in January.)
To my surprise I was able to PR the race – whooo hoooo!! My
Garmin had me finishing at 1:59:37 and my official time was 1:59:38, which is
15 seconds faster than my previous record. I was SOOOOOOO stoked – especially
since I had sort of ‘given up’ on a good race so soon into the race. I found
Ryan, which took a while with all of the people in the spectators around the
finish line.
Since we rode the train down to the race, we had to ride it
back home. I thought I had remembered seeing that the normal northbound train
was at either 9:30am or 9:45am. I finished around 9am, so we thought we would rather try
and make the early train, as opposed to waiting for the extra ‘runner’ train
that they had going back around 11:30am or 11:45am. Ryan pulled up his map on
his phone and saw that the train station was about 2 miles from the finish line
and that walking it would take us about 40 minutes. I looked at him and said,
“I can do it”. He had brought his skateboard with him so that he could get
around from the starting line to the finish line (since they were a good
distance apart), so he jumped on his board and I RAN.
Yep, I ran another 2 miles after finishing my fastest half
marathon – so did a total of a little over 15 miles – wowser!
We got to the train depot around 9:25am and ran into the
station. I asked one of the employees about the train and he said that it
wasn’t there yet, but that it would be on the middle set of tracks. It ended up
that the early train was at 9:45am and the later train was at 11:30am – but I
knew I didn’t want to chance it and show up 5 minutes late, so I guess running
was fine.
It was funny though; there were many comments along the way.
I had someone tell me I was crazy. I had a couple other folks ask me if I knew
the race was over. And the best I thought was a kid that was sitting by the
mall and asked me if I had any change for him. I looked down, seeing that I was
holding my medal so it wasn’t bouncing off my chest while running, saw my bib
and my running shorts and told him that I didn’t have anywhere to carry any
money…
Riding the train home was very nice. We were able to kick
back and relax. Since not a lot of people had finished the race by 9:45am
(remember the train station was about 2 miles from the finish, so they would
have had to finish and then still get over to the train depot) so the train was
pretty empty. We were able to get nice seats and just watch the coast out the
window for the trek home.
No comments:
Post a Comment