Not sure what was going on with my right groin, but it didn't feel right when I woke up and was getting ready for the race. I didn't do anything to strain it, but it felt like a groin pull. Perhaps I was overcompensating for my left leg issues at the half marathon 2 days ago and it was just now showing up. It didn't feel bad enough for me to take a DNS, so I went ahead and drove down to the Laguna Hills Mall for the race.
Just as with years prior, I drove down the 5 freeway and exited at El Toro Rd. Upon exit, I went straight ahead on Paseo de Valencia and turned left on Calle de la Plata. A lot of the road was coned off, but there wasn't much direction provided either by road signs or a volunteer. I only knew where to go because I've run this race numerous times. I arrived at about quarter till 6 and parked in the lot just West of the Nordstrom Rack.
I walked over to the registration table to pick up my race packet. It was good to see that this race also has gone to assigning bibs as people check-in. This way, the process can be a lot more efficient as each participant can go to any volunteer to get a bib. Also, no bibs have to be wasted on no-shows. After being assigned a bib, I moved over to the race shirt table where I saw my friend, Dexter. He was once again volunteering as well as running in the race. In additional to the shirt, the participants in the half marathon also received a trucker hat.
Race shirt and trucker hat
After using a portapotty, I went back to my car to eat my pre-race snack and to relax a bit. I had bumped into my friend who was pacing the 2 hr group, so we made our way to the starting area as I had to meet up with my running group for a pre-race photo and he had to meet up with his pacing team.
Half Fanatics
Beast pacers
Start line
The race started a couple of minutes after 7 am. That first mile was a bit congested and my stride felt awkward with that groin issue. However thankfully the groin thing cleared up fairly quickly during that first mile. Having run this race multiple times, I knew not to overdo it during the first 5k as the second half of this race has quite a collection of uphill climbs. The 5k runners definitely were pulling me a bit as I was running a tad faster than I had wanted to run. I pulled back a bit as I turned the corner at the Laguna Hills Community Center onto Alicia Parkway. That was where the 5k runners split to cross their finish line. The 1:50 pace group caught and overtook me as I was running on Wood Canyon Dr heading down to Aliso Canyon Rd. I was still moving fairly well, but not good enough to keep up with them. At about mile 7, we hopped on the little dirt trail. This trail section was new to me. We were pretty much on the trail until almost the turnaround. My faster friend caught me at around mile 9. He had run a marathon on 2 consecutive days and was still going strong! He went on to chase down the 1:50 pace group. The last 3 miles were quite the struggle, but I focused on keeping up the same leg turnover even though the legs weren't generating much power. I made sure to save enough in my legs to go up that very final short steep climb before the finish line.
Final stretch (pic from Latino Heat)
Finish: 1:57:44
Click here for my Garmin data.
Here are some interesting facts about me with this race:
- This was where I ran my first half marathon back in 2005.
- I've run it a total of 9 times. 2005-2008, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016, and 2018.
- This was where I ran my first sub 2 hr half marathon in 2008. I finished in 1:57:44.
- I wasn't trying to, but 10 years later, I finished in the same exact time, 1:57:44.
Finish line
After crossing the finish line, I got my finisher medal, a bottle of water, and a Munk Pack double dark chocolate protein cookie. My friend said it was pretty sweet, so I ended up saving the cookie for my coworkers the next day when I went back to work. I don't have much of a sweet tooth.
Finisher medal
Post race cookie
I went over to the Southeast corner of the soccer fields just at the top of the final steep hill to meet up with my friends. We hung out at that spot for a bit and cheered on other runners while we waited for some of our friends to finish.
AK-47 and Latino Heat
Once our last friend came through, we met up with her over by the finish line area. I went to the nearby booth and got a vanilla bean flavor Noosa yogurt. I think they're pretty good! We would shoot the breeze for a little bit before we started heading out.
Noosa yogurt
We headed up the hill to catch a bus back to the Laguna Hills Mall to retrieve our cars. They seemed to have maybe 2 buses running and the line of people waiting was long, but it was worth the wait as they were able to get a lot of people onto each bus. Along the way, we saw some of the people that were impatient and had decided to make the walk back to the mall. They could've been on the bus with us had they waited.
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