2014 - Surf City Half Marathon

Date:  Sunday, February 2nd. 

Starting time: 7:30 am

A couple of weeks before the Surf City Half Marathon, I received an email announcing a new challenge: The California Dreamin' Racing Cup. Basically, all finishers of the 2013 San Francisco Full/Half Marathon who finish the Surf City this February will receive a cool bottle opener medal. 

Since I ran the San Francisco Marathon last year and many of my friends were heading to Newport for the race,  I said to myself "Why not?"

Saturday, February 1st - Expo

We left San Diego at 2:30 pm and arrived in Huntington Beach jusssst in time before they closed the expo at 5:00pm. It usually takes us an hour and half to drive there but there was serious traffic that day.

Flashy hot-pink shirt for the women. Bright yellow for the men.

I love this running/surfer-style expo. It was  in and out for me, except for a quick stop to purchase a new pair of compression socks and cheap sun glasses. I had forgotten mine at home and I remembered that last year I was squinting my eyes for the last 4 miles of the race.  After the expo, we checked in at our hotel and went out for dinner at Vie de France. It was ok, nothing to die for! 

Saturday, February 2nd

I woke up at 5:45 am and headed to the hotel lobby 30 minutes later to meet my friends. It was verrrry cold outside, around 49 degrees. I had to borrow a jacket.  We carpooled to Edison High School at the Corner of Magnolia and Hamilton where a school bus would shuttled us to the starting line. We arrived at the starting line around 7:25. I usually like to be at the corrals 30 minutes before the race starts but my friends are more easy going. My friend Pretty has assured me it's an Indo thing. I don't know. I am half Austrian. I am usually on time :-) We took some pictures, wished each other good luck and finally got rid of our jackets. The sun was coming out.  Nice! I was no longer going to freeze to death!

I was assigned to corral 9 but we all started together in some random corral. For the first time ever, I was not paying attention. Maybe the Indo thing is rubbing off me?? We crossed the start line around 8:00 am. I ran without Garmin or music but I turned my RunKeeper app on just to have some stats to look at after the race. My goal was to enjoy the race and get that cool bottle opener. It was really just another training run. I was also having issues with my piriformis and IT Band so I didn't want to push it.

Mile 1-2

We started along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and passed the Huntington Beach Pier. 

Photo Credit: Surf City

Mile 2-5
We made a turn on Seaport and headed to Huntington Central Park. To my surprise, I was keeping it up with the 2:05 pacers. There was a little incline between mile 3-4, around Garfield Avenue. I remember thinking "Does Garfield dislike Sundays or Mondays? I don't know but I could eat a soup right now!".  It's so early in the race and I was already having weird thoughts! :-)

Mile 5-8
We were back on the PCH.  I spent these three miles chasing runners left and right. The 2:05 pacers had passed me but they were not too far away. Eli and Stephanie, whom I just met before the race, they are friends of friends, are doing their Galloway thing. They passed me. I passed them. They passed me. I passed them. This brings back memories of the WDW Marathon where I ran next to Jeff Galloway and his "entertaining" stopwatch. Beep beep. It's time to walk. Beep beep. It's time to run. Beep beep. It's time to walk. Jokes apart, I don't use the Galloway method anymore but I owe the man and his training program a lot for helping me out when I was injured years ago at this precise race course. At mile 7, I spotted someone wearing a rabbit costume with a poster that said "Cheaters. Cut through here". He screamed "You don't need to run the next 2 miles". Everyone laugh. 

Mile 8-13
This race course is an out and back. At mile 8 we made the turn.  The last 5 miles are almost flat, not entirely but it's not too bad.  At mile 9, I got chills literally. We had very strong winds making it impossible for me to speed up.  At mile 12, I saw the best poster EVER, it read: "WTH or Where's The Finish". This poster was made for me. Soon we saw the Huntington Pier. We were almost there!

I managed to cross the finish line with a big smile on my face, just few minutes after the 2:05 pacers. At first, I thought I'd ran a sub 2-10 ( yeah, I was back in the game), when in reality I finished in 2:14. It turns out that I started few minutes before the 2:05 pacers.  This happens when you run a race without a Garmin and time goals in mind. 

Overall, I enjoyed this race. It's not the best course in the world but it's worth for the medal, the shirt, the expo. I also love that there is a big group of Marathon Maniacs running this event every year and I am always lucky enough to have my picture taken :-)

2013 with Marathon Maniac's President