Southern California Half Marathon

So I did it... another half marathon behind me. My first half marathon back in October was MUCH different from this event. This race was located in Irvine and began a little later at 8am. I was familiar with the area, was not running late, and knew where to find an unused bathroom!

The course was very flat, and pretty fast. I had to start out slower than I liked since the crowd was there when I began. This was a good thing because it forced me to start out at a normal pace. My first mile ended up being my slowest mile (and I didn't turn my GPS watch on until .7o miles into the darn race!!) Thankfully there were clocks at each mile. Each runner had a time chip to give them accurate race finish times. I was about 27 seconds behind the clock. I didn't feel like I was going faster than my last race, but each mile was faster than Long Beach. It was hard not to discouraged because people were passing me. Then I hit the second mile at 16:15 and realized that I was running under my goal pace, so from then on I knew I needed to ignore the people around me and just run. Occasionally I would pick up my pace, or "surge" as they call it. And by the last mile I was about 3 minutes ahead of my goal pace.

Then it happened, I took a small swig of water at mile 12 and had an INSTANT cramp. It was awful! I knew I was ahead of my goal time, but did not want to walk or slow down. I pretty much pushed through the last mile trying to breath and get over the cramp. The only hard part about the end of the race, was not knowing how long I had left. When I finally saw the finish line I booked it to the end!

My official results were a time of 1:45.02 (7:47 mile pace). Improving six minutes and forty six seconds over my last race and almost 30 seconds per mile. I was 332nd out of 3,832 runners over all, 54th female, and 14th out of 141 in my age group (24-29 years old, I am 29 now). There are quite a few pictures of me from the race. I wish they weren't so expensive to purchase! http://www.backprint.com/view_user_event.asp?PID=bp%18yG&EVENTID=62139&PWD=&BIB=1069

This was a real nice race. I am looking forward to signing up for another half soon. I may also run the Carlsbad 5000 in April and then train over the summer for a marathon.

So, I beat my goal of 1:45... I think my next goal will be under 1:40.