After a long day of traveling back from Hawaii yesterday, I woke up at 5am disoriented but clearly knowing I didn’t want to run a half marathon this morning. But I’ve never regretted running a race before so I got up and went.
I left the house at 6am and got to the race at 7 with plenty of time to pick up my bib and shirt.
Saw a gorgeous sunrise on the drive down… it almost made glad I was awake. almost.
The San Dieguito Half Marathon isn’t that big so it was pretty easy to find street parking and then get my goods.
The race started at 8am and we were off before I could wake up. I remembered the course being hilly and I knew it’d be warm out today so I planned to take it pretty easy, anything around 8 min/miles would be good, I thought.
Side note: this race and I have a little history… I ran it 2 years ago: the only time I’ve worn running tights and long sleeves in a race. I had a personal sauna going on and I’m sure I lost about 13 lbs of sweat. sweet!
Last year I planned to run it and the night before had to go to the ER with a colon inflammation. double sweet!!
Anyways, around mile 5 I met Linzay from brokerunner who was looking all sorts of cute in her pink outfit.
I was trying to be conservative in my running because although the course is really beautiful, it is hilly. rolling hills, long hills, a couple steep hills. It isn’t an easy course so I knew I needed to conserve some energy for the second half.
Plus, I really didn’t feel like racing. at all.
Near the halfway point a young, super fit guy name Hunter started talking with me. He runs a 4 hour marathon… after a 112 mike bike ride and 1.2 2.4 mile swim. yup, an ironman.
He also works for Competitor Group which owns the Rock ‘n’ Roll marathons. We all know I love my RnR races and it’s one of my goals to eventually run them all.
Another side note: I took a vote with myself and it was unanimously decided that I should be on the next cover of the Competitor Mag. just sayin’…
It was fun to geek out on all things running and talk about best and worst races, future races, marathons, etc. And it made the miles go by really fast. With someone to talk to, the miles flew by.
We were running way faster than I had planned on, doing 7:13’s for awhile.
Thanks Hunter for running with me and listening to all my blabbering. And congrats on the PR!
Near the finish there’s about a half mile climb. pure evil. But I got up it barely and finished in 1:39:01, 7:34 average pace. 223 overall out of 1665, 49th woman out of 813, and 6th in my age division out of 123.
I’m really happy with that time considering how hilly the course was and how I really didn’t want to run this morning.
Funny story: this guy was yelling out that there was Sangria (a wine drink) on one side and water on the other. With my music on I didn’t hear him and guess what I drank?
Who says you can’t drink on the course?!
Some other lovely dressed up spectators:
The Queen of England. not exactly sure why… but fun to see.
These cuties were handing out beer and I almost accidentally grabbed one. When will I ever learn?! Alcohol’s on the left!
