Surf City Marathon REVIEW

The Surf City Marathon is held every Super Bowl Sunday in Huntington Beach, CA aka Surf City. The race consists of a full marathon and a half marathon. I ran and will review the full marathon.

Getting in:  I'm not sure how much the price of the half or marathon are. But like every race, the price goes up as the race day approaches. I signed up before October when I was debating running the LA Marathon or Surf City. I picked Surf City because $90 beats $150.

The Expo: The set up is really cute. The race theme is surf boards so they put up a lot of surf-inspired decorations. The bib pick up was pretty fast. I went Saturday morning (10am) and the crowds weren't that bad. After you pick up your bib and t-shirt, you walk though a bunch of vendors and some free samples. I didn't really grab a lot of stuff, I did buy some NUUN. I love this stuff, I'll write a review later :)

The Start: The full started at 6:30 (the half at 7:30), I'm glad that they had separate start time because then the races didn't interact until the very end.  I like this b/c less congestion at the start. I also loved that they had a 2 minute space between corral starts. That was awesome! It allowed for like 1K runners to take off at a time instead of 10 million. 

The course: The course started off really good. We ran through the city of HB and then made our way to PCH. Take a look at the map, mile 10 runs North until mile 12 where you make a U-turn. Then at mile 15 1/2 you turn around and go North until mile 20 and then you come back South for the final 6 miles. I'm not a fan of out- and back courses. They are mentally tough!                                    There were tons and TONS of race support and middle school cheerleaders. I loved all the young enthusiasm.                                      There was also a lot of water stations. Probably too much for my liking but I'm glad I could count of them showing up every mile. 

The Finish: The full and half finished together so there was tons of people making their way through the tunnel. It was quite a walk before I saw water. I grabbed one from the medics on the side. I saw Monica from Run eat repeat, said hi and kept walking to get my medal and find a place to sit.

Overall, I really enjoyed the race. I think it was fun and ran really smooth. I like all the volunteers and spectators. The course is pretty flat, I'm not a fan of the last 10 miles of the course but that's not a deal breaker, I'd run it again.  

This is a cute picture we took at the expo!