I enjoyed running this race last year, so I decided to run it again especially since it was not taking place the day before the Rock n' Roll San Diego Marathon. I got up early to drive over to Fontana. I timed it, so that I would get to Starbucks at about 4:45 am. There were actually 2 locations within a block of each other. They were both just off of the 10 freeway on Sierra Ave. The one I went to was right next to the ARCO gas station. I placed my order on the mobile app for my usual grande blonde vanilla latte before getting into the drive-thru lane to get my coffee.
Grande blonde vanilla latte
With my coffee in hand, I drove up to the Civic Center. Same as last year, the road was blocked off at Arrow Blvd. I made a right turn and turned left onto Wheeler Ave. Unlike last year, the road was blocked off at Lerner Ln. I believe they were trying to get us to park at the library if we approached from the south. I turned around and went up Mango Ave instead. I tried to turn into the Civic Center parking lot off of Upland Ave, but I turned one street early onto Emerald Ave. Instead of going around and trying again, I found street parking on Seville Ave. That was good enough for me. From there I walked over to Sierra Ave to pick up my race packet. In the week leading up to the race, I had received an email informing me that my team did not have the required 4 members for the $7 discount. I was instructed to pay that difference at the solutions line when I picked up my race packet. Fortunately for me, there was no solutions line and the race organizer didn't want to deal with the hassle of collecting that money. They instructed the volunteers that they would not be collecting that money. After I got my bib, race shirt, and goodie bag, I used one of the portapotties before heading back to my car.
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
Goodie bag
70th pin
Back at the car, I dropped off the goodie bag, shed some layers, and grabbed my handheld bottle. I then headed back to the corner of Upland Ave and Sierra Ave to catch a bus ride up to the start line. As I boarded the bus, I saw my friend, Brian. He gave up his seat near the front to go sit near the back of the bus with me.
Brian
From what my friends had told me, I thought that last year's staging area was new and perhaps temporary. However, we were again dropped off at the Applewhite Campground at the same exact spot. We were among the early ones there, so there was no wait for the portapotties. Slowly, but surely, I started to bump into the usual people that I would see at all of my local races.
Grant
Dexter
Paul
Mitch
As the start of the race approached, we walked up to the street and got queued up for the race start that was scheduled for 7 am. For some reason, there was about a 10 minute delay. There were no speakers or race announcers at the start line, so we were kind of in the dark as to why the race was being delayed.
Start line
Once we heard the airhorn, we knew that it was time to start running. That first mile was quite congested. I tried my best to stay with my friend as we were probably going to run about the same pace, but we got separated in that crowd. I tried to refrain from zig-zagging too much and was able to cover that first mile in about 7:25 min/mile. That was a tad fast as I wanted to hold about an even 7:45 min/mile pace from start to finish. My next 2 miles were 7:34 and 7:39. My right ankle felt kind of gimpy and the Achilles felt tight. With the road camber, I had to spend most of the race deciding whether I wanted to run the tangent or the flattest part of the course. Even with some discomfort in that ankle, I was able to maintain my desired pace (7:45 min/mile). Shortly after reaching mile 7 at Glen Helen Parkway, Lytle Creek Rd turned into Sierra Ave. Just as with last year, there was a group of spectators here cheering for runners. Last year, that was where I started to crank out the miles and slowly passed people as I had run the earlier miles at a more conservative pace. This year, I was just running at a steady pace, hoping that I had the correct pace and not burn out too early. At Summit Ave (~9.8 miles) we crossed over to the northbound lanes. There was some elevation gain here and there for the last 5k, beginning with the 210 overpass. I definitely had to work a little just to make sure that I had kept miles 11 and 12 under 8 mins. I kept reminding myself to just maintain until I had reached the mile 12 marker, then I could run that last mile as hard as I could with whatever I had left.
Race photo from Allan
Near the finish line
Finish line
Finish: 1:41:56
Click here for my Garmin data.
That effort tied my non-downhill half marathon PR that was set at the now defunct, quite hilly Hollywood Half Marathon back in 2015. It was down to the very second. Kind of hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that these days, I need to run a downhill course to equal what I used to run on a hilly course! Still, I was quite pleased that my pacing was pretty dialed in for this race. Had I not messed up my right ankle leading up to this race, I probably should've or would've finished in under 1:40. God willing, I'll try for that next year!
After receiving my finisher medal, I got a Ziploc bag of post race goodies from one of the finish line volunteers. I wish more races would do this to stop some people from taking too much. I then headed back to the mile 13 maker to cheer on some of my friends. My friend, Allan, was there taking pictures while he waited for his family to come through the finish line.
Finisher medal
Post race goodies
Paul at mile 13
Mitch
It's me, Mario!
At about 9:30 am, I started heading out as I was actually feeling a bit chilly. I was definitely thankful for the overcast as it was going to be a warm day. Along the way to my car, I stopped at the Civic Center to get a selfie with the JFK bust. Then near the bib pick-up tents, I saw a guy wearing a pretty cool Dragon Ball shirt. He told me that he bought it off of Amazon.
Fontana Civic Center
Selfie with JFK
ビルス!
It would turn out that the delay in the start of the race was because of Travis Barker. Honestly, I was not familiar with that name. He was the drummer for Blink 182. I definitely remember that band. I would venture to guess that he most likely did not take a ride on one of those school buses. We basically ran the same time with me edging him out by .7 seconds. He had posted on X the day before that he would be running the race and was going to be honored with a key to the city. The story was also mentioned in the Fontana Herald News. According to the SanDiegoVille, he also ran the Rock n' Roll San Diego half marathon last weekend. I didn't stick around, but both Inlandwire and Fontana News NOW had posted coverage on their social media account.
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