Race Report: Surf City Half-Marathon 2010

My 1st official race back post-stress fracture!



Honestly, this race was all about hanging out with familiar faces and friends, all the while getting the mileage under me (my longest since the injury). I grew concerned about my foot in the couple of days leading up to it since that area's been aching a little, but I'm happy to report that it held up well.

First thing was first - the dreaded expo. It was exacerbated by the fact that it was pouring rain when I got there, missed out on two parking spots by ONE car each time, and ended up taking a long walk in the rain over there:



Once inside the leaky expo tent, I went in and got out with my bib and shirt ASAP. Blew right by all the familiar gimmicky crap that I was uninterested in and then left early to a charity pasta dinner for Operation Jack, a foundation set up by my friend Sam with proceeds going towards Train4Autism. It's named after his son who was diagnosed with severe autism and to raise money, he is at the start of running 60 (!) marathons in 2010. He ended up pacing the 3:30 group for the 2nd year in a row.


Sam the man


The RW peeps

Anyway, most of my friends on the Runner's World forums were in attendance as well, so it was great to see familiar (and new) faces. After stuffing our faces, shooting the shit and hearing from Sam and his wife about their charity efforts, we bid adieu and I made the long trek back to LA where another family function awaited me. Finally got back home near 10pm so I quickly arranged a couple of things before going to bed.

The next morning (thankfully), we were blessed with nothing but sunny and clear skies! I rendezvoused with Danica at a sweet parking spot she scored (although I had to pay for it later) and we made our way towards the start. We tried to locate her friends Aron and Kristin but to no avail. We did run into our friends Charlie and later Chris and after a quick photo op, hit up the port-a-potties one final time before walking back to the start.


Our ringleader, the speedy Charlie!



By the time we got back, the swell of half marathoners had swelled and we could only manage to squeeze ourselves into Wave 4, or what amounted to 2:00 hour or slower halfers.



Our only goals were to: a) have fun and b) come in at a respectable sub-2 time (for our ability anyway). Only problem was we were way behind her friends from the get go. So Danica and I start off faster and more uncomfortably than we would have liked and really hauled ass for the 2nd mile before finally pulling the reins in a bit. We did finally run into them a little after mile 3 I believe and finally slowed our pace down and ran comfortably for most of the rest of the way.





While the girls were busy getting caught up, my eyes were mostly fixated on the faster runners coming back on the turnarounds since I knew many of my friends were out there. I did manage to catch and cheer on a few of them which was cool. Aron and I also talked about our respective race schedules for the upcoming year (when she'll do her first ultra) and the time and miles seemed to click by.

A little before mile 12, Danica told me she wanted to pick the pace up a bit so we broke from the main group. Then some dude runs up from behind me, sees that I'm picking off runners and says something like, "final mile...let's do this". So for the last mile point one, me and this random guy start flying down towards the finish at like 6+ min/mile (which is way too fast for me right now). I was sucking air big time but also wanted to get in some good BTTW effort, so I match him stride for stride. He ends up out kicking me at the end by about 10 yards. Eh, whatever.

Danica rolls in shortly after, we both got our desired time and had a good time doing it. My foot (other than a hot spot) felt ok. The area of the stress fracture still aches a little bit here and there but didn't really bother me during the run. We short of walked around the finisher's area, met up with a couple of other folks then decided to walk back to our cars.


Danica and I at the finish.


With running couple Kristen and Mike post-race.

After seeing Danica off, I went back to the finish area to meet up with my friend Rachel who ran the full, and we ended up grabbing some food and a beer. It was a good, successful day overall and it gives me a little more confidence heading into the LA Marathon next month. Most important thing right now is to get my long runs in between now and then and just hope my foot continues to get better.

Thanks for reading. Talk soon kids!