I timed it to get to the race at about 4:45 am and parked my car at the Gateway Plaza parking lot. This year, we were notified that there would be no road side parking along the northside of Magic Mountain Parkway. That didn't affect me as that was not my preferred parking spot. From there, I walked over to the Ironhorse Trail Trailhead to pick up my race packet. After picking up my race packet, I bumped into my friend, Ely. We walked over to Starbucks to get a drink and to use their restroom.
Race morning packet pick-up
Sleeveless race shirt
Back of sleeveless race shirt
Legacy patch
I first placed my usual order for a grande blonde vanilla latte on the mobile app before going back to my car. After dropping off the goodie bag, shedding some layers, and getting my handheld bottle, I returned back to Starbucks. We passed some time where I finally learned what my friend did for a living. After we were done with our drinks and using the restroom, we started heading over to the start line. This year they had volunteers at the street corner to make sure that people were not jaywalking.
Starbucks at Tourney
Grande blonde vanilla latte
Race bib and coffee
Once, we arrived at the race start, we got in line to use the portapotties one last time before the start of the race. Then we walked over to the participants name wall to find our names. The kids fun run started at 6:15 am just ahead of the half marathon.
Participants name wall
Found my name
Ely at the start line
The half marathon was scheduled to start at 6:30 am, but it was delayed by about 8 minutes. The majority of the race was on the Santa Clara River Trail. My friend wanted to run just under 2 hours and I didn't want to start out too fast, so we ran together for the first couple of miles. Having run this race before, I knew that the first 5 miles would be a very gradual uphill climb. I was running at a consistent 8:30 min/mile until reaching mile 8. Unfortunately, about a half mile into the next mile, my left foot cramped up. Coincidentally it happened at about the same mile as it did at the Brooklyn Half Marathon. I took a quick walk break before trying to resume running. I tried to not push off too hard with my left foot and focused on taking deeper breaths. I kept to a cruising pace until I had about 2 miles to go.
Here we go!
Station 1
Station 4
Last mile
Iron Horse Bridge
老夫子
3rd female overall, 2nd in her age group
Finish: 1:53:15
Click here for my Garmin data.
This was my fourth consecutive time running this race. I'm grateful that I had improved each time. The first 2 years, I had been dealing with nagging Achilles tendinitis and being out of shape. I've enjoyed running this little race where I just might want to keep running it every year. The most challenging part of this race had been the warm weather. However, there's a scoop of Ben & Jerry's ice cream waiting at the finish line! If I continue to come back, I would eventually want to make a push for a sub 1:50.
2024: 1:53:34
2023: 2:10:12
2022: 2:11:08
After getting my finished medal, I headed over to the finisher tents to pick up some post race snacks and water. They had quite the spread! I also picked up some sample drinks from a couple of the vendors. I then headed over to The Lost Boys Bridge to wait for my friend to come through to the finish line. Once he came through, we headed over to the ice cream truck to get our scoop of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. We both opted for the Milk & Cookies flavor. Shortly after we finished our ice cream, we went our separate ways.
Finisher medal
Close-up of finisher medal
Back of finisher medal
Close-up of back of finisher medal
The name's Bond, James Bond
Ely headed to the finish line
Post race goodies
Milk & Cookies ice cream
No jaywalking!
No comments:
Post a Comment