Inaugural Hollywood Half Marathon Race Recap & "Vamos que nos vamos!"

Race Date: Saturday, April 7th
Starting Time: 6:00 am

Race Course

Race Elevation

Friday, April 6th - Expo

We left from San Diego to Hollywood around 1:00 pm and we arrived around 4:30 pm. This trip usually takes 2 hours. However, we were stuck in LA traffic during rush hour. Oh noooo! I was getting nervous looking at my clock and thinking, "I am not going to make it to the expo on-time. I should have paid the extra $15 to have the race packet shipped to my address".

We were staying at the Sheraton Universal which turned out to be very close to the Hilton Universal where the Health and Fitness Expo was being held. My in-laws stayed with our kids at our hotel while my husband and I headed to the Expo.

View from our hotel

The Expo was a little chaotic. It was small but very crowded. After picking up our bibs and technical shirts, we did a quick walk around and went back to our hotel. We picked up our family and headed to Universal Studio City Walk for dinner and some shopping. What a fun place! This was our first trip to Universal with our two kids.

Sweet Marilyn made from 254,093 Jelly Belly beans

After carb-loading at Buca Di Beppo, we walked back to our hotel and jumped into the outdoor pool with our kids. The weather was still excellent at 8:00pm. One hour later everyone was tired and in bed.

Saturday, April 7th - Race Day

We woke up at 4:30 am. I was fresh as a daisy. I can't recall the last time I've slept 7 1/2 hours straight even with people fighting in the room next door at 2:00am. We got ready and headed to the lobby where I was meeting my fellow blogger friend Audrey Hepburn, aka Super Magnolia. We also met her friend who is doing a full ironman in 4 weeks. We walked together to the starting line, about 15 minutes away.

There we met our friends from "Embrace The Crazy"

We took a bunch of pictures and wished each other good luck before heading to our corrals. On the way there, I met "watermelon guy". He was planning on running the half marathon with a big watermelon in his head. I am not sure about the purpose of this exercise but he mentioned he has done it before. I believe at the LA Marathon. He let me try it. hahaha, it was a heavy watermelon. This guy stole the pre-race show and since I was next to him and I spoke Spanish, the tv channel Univision decided to interview us both. So watch Primer Impacto on Monday at 5:00pm for my 20 seconds of fame. :)

The race started at 6:00am. The corral assignments were not very clear to us so we jumped in corral 2 and started after the second wave. The first mile was flat around Citywalk.

At mile 2, we started going downhill. I checked my Garmin and thought "slow down, you are going too fast" but my legs were feeling good so I kept up. The rest of the course until mile 7 was almost flat but no completely as I initially thought it would be. Then, at mile 7.5 we turned around. I was happy and full of energy. I was following a guy that was very muscular dressed up like Marilyn Monroe ( white wig, arm warmers, skirt and hairy legs hahaha). He was my pacer until that point.

At mile 8, I planned to drink some water and take some GU, knowing that soon I would have to conquer the crazy hill. But wait, the volunteers ran out of cups and were handing out water jugs to share amongst the runners. This really grossed me out. Still I did it cause I needed something to help the GU gel go down.

Next time I looked at the clock, I had run 10 miles in a little over 1 h 30 min. Yahoo, a possible sub-2! But not at this race :( Big hill mountain coming up! At mile 11.5, I got "kriptonited". My super girl powers stopped working and my cape was not performing as advertised. Aghghg, those last 2 miles!! I ran it all the way but at a turtle speed thinking about Madrid with its similar tough end course.

The last half mile of the race course was downhill. My finishing time 2:06:08. Exactly the same time as in the San Diego Half Marathon at Petco a couple of weeks ago, but on a much harder course. I am happy. My goal for this race was to have fun. Nothing else. Mission accomplished!

Race Review

Pros
- Beautiful medal

- Nice technical shirt, even the running bib looked good.

-FUN race. Lots of runners dressed up like superheroes and movie stars.


Cons
- Expo was a little chaotic.
- Having to pay $8 to upgrade to a technical shirt. I have never been given a cotton race shirt before, except for the La Jolla Half Marathon.
- Corral assignments were not clear.
- There was no water cups available to runners after mile 8.
- Long walk from the finishing line to Universal Studios


This is an inaugural so there is lots of room for improvement. However, I must say that I am very impressed with the organizer for addressing many of these issues right after the race. I can tell he is very committed to make this race a success. For me, it was a FUN event. It was a little crazy here and there but overall I enjoyed it.


*** Coming Up

On Wednesday, I am heading to Europe for my first international race. I'll be in Scotland for 5 days to run he RnR Edinburgh Half Marathon (Sunday, April 15th).

This is my first trip to beautiful green Scotland, land of bagpipes, kilts, rolling hills, wonderful historic castles and handsome people like Gerard Butler ;) My plan is to have fun and take it all in. No time goals for this race. Afterall, I have a full marathon a week later, the RnR Madrid Marathon (April 22nd).

I don't have words to express how I feel about this European running adventure. I am happy. I am terrified. I am excited like a little child. Leaving you with a video of one of my favorite movies.



Don't ever let somebody tell you you can't do something.
If you want something, go get it. Period.


To my blogger friends in Spain, I hope we meet before the race. Please leave me a note if there is a "quedada blogera"