Carlsbad Half-Marathon

EVENT: Carlsbad Half-Marathon
DATE: Sunday, January 20, 2008
LOCATION: Carlsbad, CA
RACE BEGAN: 7:30 am
FINISH TIME: 02:12:23

Part 1 of 3 of the Triple Crown!

The Carlsbad Half-Marathon is the first race of the Half-Marathon Triple Crown series and claims to be the fastest half in the West.

This race was slightly complicated because it is about 100 miles from where I live, but thanks to my friend who took me down to the expo and my sister who lives about halfway there, we managed to get to the start line about two minutes before start. The start line was at a Westfield mall.

I know I started off a little too fast, though the field was very narrow and crowded throughout most of the race. I was doing a lot of rude weaving because people were just being rude. I can't stand when people shove their way to the front of the start line when they just intend on running a few steps and then stopping. And walkers belong at the END of the pack. Why can't people line themselves up appropriately? End of rant.

This race advocated not throwing cups on the floor. I can proudly say that I did not, even though at one point I ran a mile with a cup of Ultima electrolyte drink and spilled most of its contents on myself. I thought it was pretty funny to see people throwing the cups down anyway, though people were sweeping them up as quickly as they were dropped.

The first three or so miles were in the residential/light business areas, then leading up to the oceanfront. I would have liked to be closer to the water. It was probably about 50 degrees at that point, but I always thrive on breezes. At this point, I realized that I shouldn't have worn my new pair of shoes that were about 40 miles broken in. Both of my ankles were already sore.

Starting at the fifth mile, there were steady inclines pretty much at every other mile, which made me wonder why they claimed to be a flat race. Bull! I slowed down dramatically because my calves were tightening.

At the halfway point, we turned around. My 6.6 mile split time (yeah, very weird measurement) was around 1:06, which is six minutes slower than usual. I was dreading the rest of the race and started walking. I probably walked a total of a mile throughout the last half of the race. My legs were both hurting in various places, and both arches in my soles were pretty much charlie-horsed. I'm sure the photographers got a lot of pictures of a pained me.

The last part of the race was through a downtown sort of area, mostly downhill. I sprinted the last mile because it was shady and breezy. I was actually a bit surprised that the clock was not at 2:20 or 2:30 or something... because I was expecting a personal worst time. I came in at around 2:17 gun, 2:12 chip time. I struggled to lift my leg to remove my chip. And then I started cramping everywhere as I tried to make my way back to the lot.

I waited about half an hour for people, but my sister and I needed to head back home ASAP to celebrate my mom's birthday. She ended up getting a 1:53, which I one day hope to get. I have one more half-marathon before the Los Angeles Marathon in March, so hopefully I get a better time there. I can't say I'm horribly disappointed... I did what I could do given my dumb decisions. Sometimes I wish I did not hit 2:05 while ill during the very scary Rose Bowl Half, because that sent the message to me that I could easily do better in a flat race. I don't know what is keeping me from doing so, but for now, all I can do is continue to train as faithfully as possible.