Race details:
Long Beach, California
Run: 26.2 miles
Course Reported Finish: 3:43:36
Garmin Splits:
Race Summary:
This race is a pretty good first half marathon. It's flat as a pancake other than 4 small hills (the elevation changes for those 4 hills are 32 ft, 84 ft, 32 ft and 23 ft). Trust me though, those hills, which mostly happen at the end, are still really killer when you're in pain and tired and trying not to walk haha. They also changed the start to be 6am which kept it really cool at 73° for the start. But the temperature went up to 83° by 8:30am and 93° by 10am. It even got up to 98° later in the day. Pretty nuts!
The race had a mass start so everyone just goes together. The funny part about this is that you get a bunch of people storming out ahead. Being a now seasoned long distance racer, I mentally tried to take note of every person that ran ahead of me, particularly ones that I felt had no business beating me. It helped if they had some unique attire. But I told myself "run your own race, you'll be strong at the end and you'll chase them down." Well, I definitely did and I smoked quite a few of them ;)
One potential malady happened at mile 2/3ish. I'm running along, I just popped a salt pill and put my little pouch thing back into my tri top. Little did I know that it had fallen out. But as I was running, someone passed me and said "did you drop a little black pouch?" I immediately was like "OH CRAP! THAT'S MY SALT! I GOTTA GO GET IT!" I literally stopped, went back about 15-20 ft, looked around, couldn't find it and said screw it. I knew I had a cramping problem and I was scared to push forward without the salt, but I knew it wasn't worth looking any longer. So onward I went... Unsalted :D
Along the way, fan support was pretty awesome for this race. I don't know that triathlons have as huge a following as half/full marathons, so most races I've done have never been this big. But there were so many people at the start. So many people along the course. At some rough spots at mile 16 and when it looped back around for mile 19, you had the Long Beach college pep band playing Eye of the Tiger haha. Support along the course was just great!
As mentioned, there were 4 small hills. The first one was early and I had no desire to walk. But the next hill came past the halfway point and the big one was at mile 18. I definitely wanted to walk. But I had seen some of the people I had eyed down and my personal pride to not walk also got to me. So walk I did not. Even at hill 4 which was near the end, like maybe mile 23, I pushed on. I told myself to keep going, the pain is temporary and it will end soon. Just keep pushing forward. And I did.
All in all, I had a pretty good race and a time that I'm very happy with! It's not fast, but it's good for a guy with my build and it's exciting to hope that I can get a sub-4 marathon! So happy to just have this box checked and now work on crushing that PR! :D
Pics:
Packet Pickup and Race Prep:
Pre-Race Meal:
Race Pics:
Post-Race Meal:
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