2010 Laguna Hills Half Marathon Recap

I figured it couldn’t hurt to run a Half Marathon while training to do a full. So I signed up for the Laguna Hills Memorial Day run. Since I don’t like driving a long distance before a race, I spent the weekend at my friend’s house in Irvine. Saturday and Sunday were spent watching TV and playing COD. At some point I bought my routine Race Day Breakfast: plain bagels and chunky Skippy peanut butter (Chunky is the only way to go). Monday morning came about and after getting showered and dressed I drove to the Laguna Hills mall where the race started. Since this was my third race I wasn’t sure what to expect. To my surprise the parking lot was empty and there were only about 40 runners at 5:45 am. I probably could have slept 30 more minutes but oh well. I had a goal to break 2 hours since I was so closed at the O.C. Half but I spoke to a couple of other runners and they mentioned that this is not a course to PR in, the hills were not going to cooperate. I gave this serious thought and decided to just run it and not worry about time.

After everyone poured in, we got in the starting corral, stretched, heard the National Anthem and we were off!

If there is a word to describe this race it would be Hilly. The first half is technically downhill. However there are a few rolling hills all the way to the reserve which happen to be steeper on the way up than the way down. By mile 4 the sun came up and the temperature started to slowly rise. It was somewhere around this point where I realized I had forgotten to put body glide on. Now I had chaffing to look forward to. No biggie, I had run a couple of 10 and 11 mile training runs forgetting to do this as well. At the reserve we came to an area of two-way traffic where the front runners pass right by us. At this point is where the uphill back to the finish line begins. To make this point more palpable it starts with the steepest hill of them all and set the pace for the next long miles. These last 6-7 miles are all a slight uphill with a few very short flat areas. And not to make it easy, they are a few underpasses we go through that only make the inclines a bit worse.

It was at about mile 11 that I had had enough. My body was angry at me, my feet were hurting and I was feeling very tired. This is where the mental game started. I keep telling myself that each step got me closer to the next mile marker. I keep the pace with a group of flag bearers who were representing the Armed Forces but those guys are made of steel and quickly left me in the dust. I think they were the only ones that passed me during the whole race. Suddenly I started to see more people and the noise of the crowd gave my pace a slight kick right before the finish line. As soon as I made the last turn I saw the clock reading 1:59:04 and I knew I had done it!

My official time was 1:58:42. Reaching my goal of under 2:00 was in the back of my mind the whole time, but the way I was feeling after mile 11 made me think that I was nowhere near getting to it. The fact that I did it in the most challenging race I have done yet made it the more sweet.



I'm starting to get a nice collection!



Overall, a great experience.