Race Recap: SD Half Marathon

Since the LA Marathon was moved up to February because of the Olympic Trials, Sean & I had the opportunity to run the SD Half Marathon in downtown San Diego last weekend.

Sean had run it the first 2 years and now we were running the 5th anniversary race.

Packet-pickup is downtown at an expo building on the harbor.  Right down from where I runch with @runningwithsd. Sean & I went early on Saturday morning. We needed to pick up our packets, get a quick shakeout run in and then pick up his mom who was visiting from the airport.

As soon as we walked in had to fill out a waiver & then we got our bibs. They were kinda big and they way they were made made it very hard to fold them. The intent I’m sure 😉.

We got there & saw Christy from Running Skirts working their booth & chatted with her for a bit before walking to the back & outside to get our race shirts.

I really like my shirt, although what’s up with all the race directors choosing gray? I think the shirt which for women had purple accents would have been even more awesome in reverse. Men got a blue accent shirt.

They had Leslie Jordan shirts and I’m glad I choose a small. I picked a medium at Gasparilla & it was huge, although the sleeves were too short.

We looked briefly at the expo but there wasn’t much that interested us so we headed out to get a few photos & then head for our run.

After we picked Sean’s mom up we went to True Food for lunch, did a few errands and then it was time for dinner.

We found an awesome pizza spot in Old Town which seems a bit old considering most restaurants there are Mexican. But this pizza was super yum & I’m looking forward to going back!

Note we are a ton between a visit to Eclipse Chocolate on Friday night, lunch at True Food & then Pizza Bella so I’m not sure if that contributed to my not feeling well during the race or not.

We came home, got our gear out. I did my standard flat Jenny photo, although I didn’t post it and then we watched a movie on K2 that was really good before going to bed at around 10:30p for me.

That night was the time change so we spring forward an hour. I always get nervous when we have a race after the time change so I set my alarm for 4:30a so I could make sure it updated & of course it did lol.

I think we finally got out of bed around 5am (or at least I did) got ready, I ate a cup of oatmeal and we headed out to downtown.  We didn’t have any traffic and found parking pretty close to the start for $10.00.

The start line was in front of the convention center on Harbor Drive.  We walked over, they had a bunch of port-a-potties lining the corrals, gear check was right next to the finish line, no UPS trucks at this race since the start & finish were so close together.

Not too long after we walked over to the corrals, we ran into Smitha @runningwithSD, I gave her one of my Momentum Jewelry “Share the Spark” bracelets, got a photo and then we headed to hit the bathroom.  At this point, the lines for the port-a-potties were relatively normal, although from start line it looked like they were back to back so that there would be lines in the corrals & on the other side.  They were open in the middle though so it was a bit confusing later on as there were lines every where.

We checked my bag and then by this point, I was starting to feel a bit nauseous, which wasn’t fun, especially since we hadn’t even started the race.  I left Sean up by Corral 1 and walked back to my corral #5.  Along the way, I saw Jenn @solehealth and I looked for Smitha, but I didn’t see her.  I made my way into my corral and just hung out there until it was time to start.

As I was waiting to start, I swear that my corral seemed to get bigger & bigger, when I first got into the corral I was up towards the front and then all of a sudden I was in the middle or back.  It was really weird, but because there weren’t fences on the side, people could jump in at any time.

We finally got started, 16 minutes after corral 1.  It was a beautiful day, as we ran down by the Harbor for a few miles, past the airport and then down closer to the water near Harbor Island for about a mile.  It was over here at mile 4 that I ran into Smitha and was like how did you get so far ahead of me, when she was supposed to be in the same corral.  Come to find out she jumped in a little bit ahead of me which is why I didn’t see her earlier.  I got a quick selfie and then I continued on.

After this we continued on by the Harbor for another mile or so before we went into Liberty Station.  There was a short uphill over a bridge and then we got a small section of trail before hitting mile 6.  The relay exchange point was in this section.  There were a few moments when I wished I was running the relay since I was still not feeling great. But alas I was not so I continued on.

I think the next section probably miles 7 – 8 were the least pretty in my opinion as we had to get from Liberty Station back to downtown.  Not long after this stretch, started the hills.  There were a few steep hills that I walked up feeling like I was barely moving.  It’s in this section that my pace really fell off a bit, especially as I hiked up the big hill at mile 8.5 – 9.5.  Once I got to the top, I started running again and was really looking forward to the downhill to the finish.  In fact I kept asking myself, when will I get to the downhill.  It finally came as we approached Balboa Park around mile 11.

It was at this point that I could see @jenn13.1 with her Procompression shamrock socks on.  I was trying to catch up but I was just so tired by that point.  As we came closer to the finish line, we ended up getting stopped by a trolley and I finally caught up to her.  I continued on to the finish and got it done.  I was so happy to be finished!

I saw Sean & his mom in the stands and went to give him a hug.  I asked him how he did and he kind of strugged & said ok.  Later he would tell me that he got a 1:36 and that his knee was bothering him a little so he backed off a bit.

After a few minutes with them, I went to get my medal, which really was awesome – one of my favs – and then to get my goodie bag.  I was walking with Jenn and one of her friends, who’s name escapes me now.  We got our post race treats, which they did an awesome job with.  They gave us a nice re-usable bag filled with our snacks and they were handing them to us.  It really was nice – I wish all races would do something similar.  We also got bottles of water & chocolate milk before getting our bags.

I met up with Sean & his mom after getting my bag.  We got a few treats, some naked juice samples and an Acai snack from Sambazon but I still wasn’t feeling a 100%.

We ended up going to breakfast at Cafe 222, which was yummy, and then relaxing for most of the day before another good dinner at Cafe Guadalajara in Old Town.

Pros: Relatively Flat Course for 8 miles
Aid Station signs telling us how long until the next aid station
Nice Shirts
Awesome Medals
Goodie Bag

Cons: The Hills at miles 8 – 10
Marathonfoto for the photos – They are just way too expensive
Weird set-up for the port-a-potties at the start

All in all though, this is a great race. It’s unfortunate that it is the same weekend as the LA Marathon because I wouldn’t mind running it again.