Surf City Marathon Race Recap

Unfortunately Pam and I didn’t PR today.  But we gave it a solid, good effort and sometimes that’s all you have.

I got up right before 4am and made it up to the start in Huntington Beach around 5:20.  I found Pam right away and we hung out in a hotel until the start.

The 6:30am start was great because it wasn’t that cold out and not warm yet either.

The plan was to run as close to 7:45 min/miles (which would be a 3:23 finish) as we could with the ultimate goal of running a 3:26 or better for a personal best for Pam.

We started off great, a little slower than GP which was totally fine with me.  At 3 miles our average pace was 7:55.  For someone who usually starts really fast, I’m sure Pam felt like she was slogging it out with me.

We talked the whole time, watched a pretty sunrise and just enjoyed the run.  Our 6 mile average pace was 7:50.  perfect.

We just kept putting the miles down; Pam did a great job of letting me control her pace and her race and I was OBSESSIVE about checking my Garmin.  like psychotic-checking it.  basically the way I check People.com.

We passed the halfway mark at 1:41:xx which again, I felt was right on track: not too aggressive but not too slow either.  Our 12 mile pace was 7:52.

After doing some early miles in a park, we hit the ocean again and it was beautiful – this is another fun, scenic run along the ocean.  And it’s flat, pancake flat.  my jokes flat.  my hair flat.

I don’t have anymore splits, but I think it was around mile 19 that Pam walked through her first water station.  Totally fine because we were still on pace.  We saw Sarah and she ran with us 2 different times which was a big energy boost.

She moonlights as a cheerleader.

We turned around at mile 20 and headed to the finish.  By now we were walking through a few aid stations but still hanging in there and on track for a PR.

Probably around mile 23-24 Pam started to really slow down and was in a lot of pain.  The kicker in all of this was that she only trained to 16 miles – she hadn’t run longer than that in 2 months and just 2 days ago decided to run this race!

She tried as hard as she could and I yelled at her for the last 3 miles (fun, huh) and she pushed as much as she could to the finish.

I finished in 3:27:52 and I think she was a second or two ahead of me.  10th out of 77 in my age division, 35th woman and 237th overall.  average pace, 7:56.

Not a PR for her but about 1 minute off and for only having a 16 miler under her belt, I was dang impressed with her ability to tough it out!  Those last 2 miles were miserable for her, I just know it.  And probably the 6 before that… and I’m sure I didn’t make it any easier!

Man, we were close and we gave it a good effort. 

I feel bad because I really really wanted to “give” Pam a PR especially at this time in her life, but it didn’t happen today.  Nevertheless, it was a really fun run for me to run with a friend.

Thanks Pam for running with me and allowing me to attempt to pace you… and yell at you a lot

Tagged as: beach, friends, marathon, PR, race recap