New PR Baby!!

Isn't it amazing that when you are running a race and you don't feel so red hot, and you start saying things like "I just need to finish. I don't care about time", then you realize that you are within shootin' range of a new PR and all of a sudden you have new found energy and it is an awesome race? Yeah, that happened to me today.

Race Report: Santa Cruz 1/2 Marathon Santa Cruz, CA

I got there 45 minutes before they even started packet pick up to make sure I could get good parking and knew where I was supposed to go. I am ALWAYS super early to these things. I hate feeling rushed. I sit in my car and drink my pre-race coffee, listen to music and take random pictures out of my car window. Picture: Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. It is an amusement park where you can find every degenerate that lives in Santa Cruz, or possibly even the entire state, hanging out at any given time.

When I went to get my race number, I ran into my friend Tak who used to teach at my school. He is REALLY fast at these things, but has always been SUPER supportive of me and my run buddy (he is actually very close friends with my run buddy) about the whole running, triathlon thing. Very cool to see him. Picture: Random shot in the car. I was putting the camera way and it took a picture. I thought it looked kind of cool.


The race started promptly at 7 am and we ran along the coastline for about four miles before turning inland. It was pretty, but already warm at 7 am. Not a good sign. Picture: Sun rising over the pier.

The race was much hillier (is that a word? hill laden, hill endowed? Whatever, there were a lot of fucking hills) than I had expected. Garmin says I did 1120 ft. of climb and that makes me feel a lot better about how shitty my legs felt. My quads were tight the entire time and my hamstrings about 90% of the time. I didn't stretch well after my Thursday run (since I was late to get back to school) and they never felt quite right all day yesterday.

Lesson learned. Do not do hill workout and then immediately jump into your car and go stand on concrete giving a lecture for an hour and a half. I know, I am full of "insider tricks" to running. Picture: Pretty farm on inland trail portion.

The 7 mile return trip was with full sun in your face the entire time and it was HOT. I was sweating more than I thought and I think I had some electrolyte issues. I ate my Gu's on schedule and had the Cliff Shot blocks (not until mile 10.5, stupid!), but I should have planned better for electrolyte replacement.

When I hit mile 12 it finally dawned on me that I could actually get a PR on this run (not really my goal since this was a training run and I am running a 10K tomorrow, but hell, I will take 'em when I can get 'em.) With this in mind I bumped up the speed a little and went for it. I finished in 2:19:42 (10:40 min/mile pace. Whoa), 3 minutes faster than Buzz 1/2 Marathon, my previous PR. Woo hoo!

After the race I stood in line for 20 minutes at what I thought was the t-shirt line, turns out it was for food. Damn, so I got out of that line and went to find my shirt. This is when I ran into Tak again. He placed 9th overall and won his age group (see, I told you he was really fast) Picture: Me and Tak after the race. Tak on the winner's podium with his prize. It was a very pretty sand globe thing-a-ma-job.