This year, I decided not to run the Surf City USA Half-Marathon again. I did this race in 2008, 2009, 2010 to earn my "Longboard Legacy" status, and even last year, 2012 for the Beach Cities series.
Surf City has always been a nice race to run -- in fact, I've PRed on this course more than once. However, it is kind of expensive for a half-marathon, and frankly, I get bored running the same course so many times.
So just like in 2011, I sat this one out while "The Ukrainian" ran. He wanted to try the full marathon and finished at around 3:37 training just a few long runs with me.
On Saturday, the day before the race, he and I did marathon packet pick-up. Since we had the morning shift, it was hard to tell how many people would never come to pick up their bibs, but I did hear a lot of people were too sick to run.
Sunday rolled around, and while "The Ukrainian" waited in the car before his race, I started my shift at 4:45 AM to help coordinate volunteers. I was scrambling around until 11 AM, so I think I had a little mini-marathon of my own. I'm still amazed to see races run so well, because it really takes a lot of manpower and a lot of organization to deploy that manpower. And when you are sitting in the front of the expo in a volunteer shirt, everyone assumes you know everything about everything and asks you everything as such. Fortunately, I've participated enough times to at least get most of them.
I was a little sad not to be running, but less than is typical. The 5K that I had coming up next week has been "postponed," so my first race of the year s now a 30-mile bike tour in a couple of weeks. I've done a 20-ish mile one before, but this upcoming one is hilly, and I'm coming into is fairly untrained. Then, about three weeks later... LA Marathon 2013. I've been getting some long runs in (12.5, 17.5) and will have to plug in my 20-miler two weeks before... great.
For now, I think I caught something on the Metro or the expo, so I don't think I'll be running until the latter part of the week. That's enough to make me anxious, but oh well. I guess it's for the better that I helped run Surf City instead of actually running it.
I was going to try to find you on race day but the timing was tight and I carpooled so I had to stick with my car-mates to ensure that I didn't get left behind. So cool that you volunteered and can't believe A's 3:37 time on a little bit of training. I wish I had those talents.
ReplyDeleteBrother's friends supposedly ran this one, I only did a local 10K. I see you're doing the bike ride @ LA Firecracker. I'll be racing my brother and his friends at the 10K (also convinced my sisters to sign up for the 5K AND registered my 2 y/o nephew to do the 1k kiddie run). It's going to be a blast!
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