On Sunday, Sean & I ran the Mount Laguna marathon for the first time. We’ve heard so much about this race & have run most of the course over the years but had never put it together & done the race.
We decided to do this race for two reasons. One because we were going to be home and wanted to run it and two because we had to run a marathon as part of the NYC Marathon Strava Virtual Run challenge so we could get guaranteed entry into the 2020 race. We signed up for this a few months back and paid to do the virtual run so we could get in to the race without having to deal with the lottery.
We were able to stay at home the night before because Mount Laguna is only about an hour from us. It’s been months since we’ve been out there, I think maybe we went out in early July to do a run & we haven’t been back since.
The race started at 8am with bib pickup between 7a – 7:40a so we didn’t have to get up too early. It was also time change weekend so we fell back on Sunday night and it was light out when we left the house.
We got there and a bunch of people were congratulating Sean on a great summer & asking him if he was going for the win lol. We decided to run together so he was bring up the rear with me lol.
We saw my friend Lisa from our local Arete group & a bunch of other friends. We got the quick race briefing and then we were all off!
We started out chatting with Lisa and our friend Jacket for the first 4ish miles before I needed to slow down. We were doing pretty good but a marathon is a long way & I wanted to make sure I could make it to the finish. I needed to get that NYC entry!!
The course is beautiful, we start and end at Red Tailed Roost and start running on Thing Road before heading to the PCT which is one of my favorite places to run.
We ran right through the first aid at about 4.5 miles & then headed to Penny Pines for the first time. This is such a beautiful part of the course and one that we have done many times overlooking Anza Borrego.
We got to the second aid and refueled. The guy at the aid station was like, this is an aid station, not a rest station so off you go! And away we went. The next aid was about 4 miles away.
I was losing a lot of salt! My shirt had a salt mountain on it and everything! By the time we got to Pioneer Mail, I was light headed and not sure if I’d be able to finish. But I got some ginger ale & coke and then we kept moving.
This section was 7 miles and we had to go in & out of Nobel Canyon before getting back to Penny Pines (on the opposite side of the road).
I know Sean was probably a little frustrated, I kept telling him he could go ahead but he kept saying he was happy being with me but I know he wasn’t expecting to walk as much as we did. But I told him, he doesn’t normally run with me and walking a bunch of trail races is pretty much my MO lol. But I was a little more out of shape than normal so it was probably a bit slower than normal.
Photo by T.Allin Photo
We finally got to the last aid & I was just ready to get to the finish! I had 2 cups of ginger ale & tried to get some orange slices but there were a lot of bees. We just kept moving towards another section of the course that we have done a lot, the Big Laguna Meadows.
We passed by cow lake (my term not an official one ;)) and stayed to the far end of the meadow before heading up in the last 1.5 miles.
We finally were almost there! We ran into one of our friends who was waiting for her family to arrive before she crossed the line, and then we were almost there!
Across the finish line we went! The RD, Kathleen gave us both hugs and our medals and we ran off for a few more minutes so we could make sure we were over the marathon distance for the virtual challenge.
After getting that done, we were ready for some food. They had some vegan options for us which was super sweet.
We also got our goodie bags, which had some cute things in them. We didn’t get shirts though because they were an add on and we have so many shirts. But they were super cute Patagonia shirts.
All in all I would say that this was a gorgeous race & they did a great job & if we are in town we’ll run this one again.
