Twoish weeks ago I got an email regarding a July 4th race so Sean & I discussed it and looked at all the local options for 4th of July races. There were 2 big ones here in San Diego. The Crown City Classic in Coronado with a 1 mile, 5k or 12k race & the Scripps Old Pros 10k at Lake Miramar with a 2 miler & 10k along with a variety of bike races.
After looking it over we decided to run the Crown City Classic for a few reasons. #1 Coronado is much closer to our house & #2 It was a little longer race at 7.4 miles.
After we finished up at Black Mountain last week we headed to Road Runner Sports to pick up our race packets. The race shirts were really cute with a map of the course on them.
Since the 4th was on Wednesday, Sean & I both had to work the rest of the week. We met up the night before for a quick shake-out run and then had dinner at Veggie Grill & freezes from Pressed Juicery.
We got our clothes out, did flat runner photos when we got home. I like to do a #flatjenny photo so that I don’t forget anything the next day. Since it was a shorter race, I didn’t need a lot of stuff, but I knew that I would be soaked afterwards, so I brought a change of clothes which I was so happy I had new clothes because we were super sweaty.
The next morning we got up around 5am got out the door by 5:30am and off we went. It only takes about 15 minutes for us to get to Coronado so we were there pretty early. Good thing too because we needed to find parking.
We parked, walked over to the start line at Tidelands Park and then dropped off my bag. There were plenty of port-a-potties and they did an fun pre-run warm-up for those that wanted to participate. Before we started they read off the names of all those people in the military who had died since 4th of July last year. Very happy to hear that there weren’t many.
After this they got us lined up and someone played the National Anthem on a trumpet and then the race director did a play on the Independence Day speech that Bill Pullman gave before they headed out to fight the aliens & then we were off!
A unique thing about this race is that they have you start by going under a huge US flag. It was a cool, but you had to pay attention because it didn’t stay up very well, lol.
The race is a nice flat out and back, you run past the golf course, past the marina and onto the strand before turning around. There were 2 aid stations that you hit twice.
I started out pretty fast. As I hit the first mile, 2 guys passed me saying they were running too slow, while I was thinking I was running too fast, lol.
I was breathing hard & wasn’t really ready to be running low 8 minute mile pace, but I managed to keep it together for 4 miles before taking a quick walk break at the aid station. I picked it back up and just kept moving it along. In the end I was able to maintain a 8:26 avg pace which I was pretty darn proud of.
June was a tough month for me between recovering from Nanny Goat, being super busy at work & traveling to the Bahamas, I barely got 75 miles in all month & most of that wasn’t speed work. So it was a huge confidence boost to know that I was able to maintain a good speed for more than just 3 miles. I was feeling it by the time I closed into the finish, but I felt like I finished strong.
They announced our names at the finish line, I always like that it gives you a little boost at the finish & since they had free photos, that’s a nice perk to make sure you smile at the end.
They handed out our medals. There was bottled water, bananas & kashi bars to replenish with. They had a little post race expo that we didn’t visit. We got a few photos then got changed & headed back to our car. We wanted to get off the island before the parade.
I would definitely run this race again. Did you run a race on 4th of July or just run on your own?
