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!

SUB4 or die

If you remember back in October, I was pretty sure I was going to break four hours at the Nike Women's Marathon. 

Well, stuff happened and I didn't get enough fuel and I finished at 4:11. It was a hard loss and definitely  defeating. I signed up for the Surf City Marathon to redeem myself. Last week, I was starting to feel worried and not so confident in myself. Plus,  I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to break 4 hours.  (Plus, I had already announced it to everyone!!!)

Saturday night, I left a friends baby shower early and went to bed at 9pm. I was totally scared and almost talked myself into running an easy marathon without my garmin (I'm glad I didn't). That night I couldn't sleep and was up at 4am to head over to Huntington Beach. 

Can you see the lack of sleep in this pre-race pic? ( I also wore this shirt on my 1st SUB4 attempt)

I told myself, "run an 8:30 pace for the first 13 miles". I knew that I could do that and felt good at the start so I decided to give it a try. I know that this isn't a great pacing strategy and I really want to work on that, but in the moment I felt like running a strong 1/2 would be a great confidence booster. 

After mile 13, I told myself to get to mile 15 at this same pace. I still felt ok, I felt tired but I still had some gas left and there was only a slight tingle in the back of my thigh. 

Mile 15-20. I told myself I could slow down a little, but nothing over 9 min/mile. It worked but it was so hard after mile 18. Mile 17- 24 was an out and back. The first part was a mental challenge, coming back was a little easier since I already had seen some of the landmarks. 

Mile 20-26 were slow. I was probably running 9:40 min/mile. My legs were screaming. I wanted to stop and sit down, but I knew then it would take me longer to finish. I played more and more mind tricks with myself, basically bribing myself to get to the next mile (with a pair of crossfit shoes, never running a marathon again and a BIG 7/11 slurpee) or physically forcing myself to move one foot in front of the other. 

At mile 24, I looked at my watch and noticed I still had 20 minutes to spare. I told myself to keep moving because it was almost done, 2 miles in 20 minutes. I could do it!

and I did!

My time splits:

3 Mi: 25:56 Pace: 8:39 6 Mi: 51:10 Pace: 8:32 Half: 1:51:54 Pace: 8:33 15 Mi: 2:08:07 Pace: 8:33 20.9 Mi: 3:01:22 Pace: 8:41 24 Mi: 3:32:36 Pace: 8:52