Surf City Half Marathon 2024

Saturday 2/3
I got up early to catch the 4:30 am Everton v. Spurs match. It was great to see Richarlison score a brace against his old team. However, the match ended in a 2-2 draw with Everton managing to get a stoppage time goal. So Spursy!

Although Bayern Munich v. Mönchengladbach was on at 6:30 am and 3 EPL matches at 7:00 am, I opted to watch the US Olympic Marathon Team Trials that took place over in Orlando. The live coverage was on Peacock. While I was grateful that I already had a subscription, it was a terrible presentation of the race! While the actual coverage and commentary were good, there were so many interruptions with a screen saying that coverage will resume shortly. Why couldn't they just kept the camera on the action the entire time? Showing some commercials instead of that screen would have been a better option! For the winners, I only know of Conner Mantz and Emily Sisson. It's good to see a new crop of American runners in the marathon. I cannot wait to see them in action in Paris!

Top 3 Men:
1. Conner Mantz 2:09:05
2. Clayton Young 2:09:06
3. Leonard Korir 2:09:57

Top 3 Women:
1. Fiona O'Keefe 2:22:10
2. Emily Sisson 2:22:42
3. Dakotah Lindwurm 2:25:31

Poor coverage with too many interruptions!

Top 3 Men

Top 3 Women

After eating lunch, I hopped in the car to finally head to Huntington Beach for the race expo. I took the usual route, exiting at Beach Blvd off of the 22 freeway. Per the usual, I parked in the lot across the way from the Hyatt Regency Resort. Since most of my friends had already picked up their race packets, I wasn't expecting to bump into any of my friends. After I picked up my bib, a long sleeve race shirt, and a long sleeve Longboard Legacy Club shirt, I bumped into my friend, Tracy. She saw me while I was looking for my name on the participants name wall.

Race expo

Race shirt pick-up

Long sleeve race shirt

Long sleeve Longboard Legacy Club shirt

Back of Longboard Legacy Club shirt

Participants name wall

Found my name

Closer view

Ran into Tracy

After snapping a quick selfie, I then continued on with the rest of the expo. I came up to the registration table for next year's race. Unfortunately, after 18 consecutive years running at this event, I will not be able to attend next year. The Disneyland Half Marathon will be on the same date in 2025.

Registration prices for next year

Next I came across Nadia up on the small guest speaker stage. She was talking about how we can train our gut to fuel more efficiently for our endurance races. I also saw my friend Michael Schwartz sitting in the front row. On the way out, I got a $5 promo card for Dunkin'. Before heading back to my car, I decided to check out the VW buses.

Nadia

VW buses

Sunday 2/4
The most recent weather forecast looked very promising. If accurate, it looked like the storm would hit hours after the race. I got ready and left the house a little before 4:30 am. I arrived at the Beach Blvd/PCH intersection right at 5 am. Having run this race many times, I knew to stay on the left turn lane and head straight. The center lane that's actually designated for heading straight was mostly for people wanting to park in the paid parking lot. As I got near the gate, I noticed that it was closed so I queued up in the line of cars. After sitting there for about 10 minutes, a Huntington State Beach park ranger drove by and told me that I needed to head down to the Magnolia St entrance as the Beach Blvd entrance would not be open until 6 am. I inquired about the Newland St entrance. He said that that one was closed as well. As someone that has no problem following instructions, I started heading down to Magnolia. As I drove by, I noticed that the Newland St entrance was indeed closed. However when I came up to the Magnolia entrance, the line was much shorter, but the gate was still down. It was a short wait before they opened. I confirmed with the gate attendant that we could head north to park closer to the Beach Blvd entrance.

Eventually, I met up with my friend, Albert. We ended up parking pretty close to each other. He was one of those cars waiting at the Newland St entrance. We walked over to the Hyatt Regency to wait for the start of the marathon. At about 6 am, we started heading over to the start line as my friend needed to check in his jacket at gear check. Along the way, we ran into a marathoner that was having trouble figuring out how to get down to the street. We had him follow us. I ran into my friend Ted at the gear check area. I also ran into the usual suspects as I waited for the marathon to start at 6:30 am.

Albert

Beautiful sunrise

Joe!

Marathon Maniacs, Michael Rhodes and Jesse Qiao

Pic from Robert

Big time Kobe fan, Mitch

After sending off the marathoners, I headed back to the Hyatt Regency to wait as the half marathon was scheduled to start at 7:45 am. This hotel always puts out bananas and bottles of water in the lobby for runners to take. Even if we weren't staying there, the employees would insist that we take a banana. Eventually, I bumped into my friend while waiting there. After using the restroom one last time, we headed over to the starting corral. While we were waiting in the corral for the start of our race, we noticed that there was a never ending line of 5k stragglers that had yet to start their race! I'm going to guess that they all had a hard time with parking.

Pre-race banana

Starting corral

The race started on time at 7:45 am. My friend and I didn't start very close to the front, so it was a bit congested during that first mile. My plan was to go out at a 8:15 min/mile pace and to hold that for as long as I could. The first mile was a tad too quick at 8 flat. I followed the next 2 miles with 8:10 and 8:08. Once I got to that climb up Garfield Ave, I took my one and only walk break as I was ahead of schedule. With that walk break, I reached mile 4 in 8:48. That was followed by 8:02 and 8:07 taking me back onto PCH. My next 2 miles were 8:33 and 8:42 which took me out to mile 8 and the turnaround. My pace slowed, but the effort felt the same. I was hoping to make up some of that time, but now I was running into a headwind with some uphill miles just up ahead. I was quickly passed by the 1:50 pace group shortly after making the turnaround. As to be expected, my pace continued to slow with each mile (8:48, 8:51, 9:08) until getting through the bulk of the climb at mile 11. Although I didn't take any walk breaks, my right hip was feeling quite weak while covering those miles. I didn't have much left during the last 2.1 miles (9:12, 9:00, 1:16), but once I had gotten to that final stretch, I emptied my tank with whatever I had left.

Finish: 1:52:41
Click here for my Garmin data.

Right after crossing the finish line, I was mostly disappointed with how much I had faded after the turnaround at mile 8. I was hoping to finish this race in under 1:50, but came up short by a few minutes. A combination of hip issues, a stiff headwind, and suboptimal pacing, I came up short of my goal. Instead of focusing too much on the negatives, I had to remind myself that I had run fast enough to set a new course PR.

Finish line

After receiving my finisher medal, I continued along the finisher chute. I received a bottle of water, a banana, a bunch of various snacks, and a small colorful towel. Near the exit of the finisher chute, I picked up 2 small cartons of TruMoo before heading over to the Hyatt Regency. It was my usual routine to head over there to drink the chocolate milk and clean up my face a bit in their restroom before hitting the road. My friend was a bit late showing up to the race, so she missed me crossing the finish line. However, she had a gift for me. We met up at one of the Hyatt Regency fountains. She gave me a fantuan. It was one of the best things to eat after running a race. All that was missing was some hot soy milk.

Finisher medal and post race goodies

Ichi

Fantuan

As I had mentioned earlier, this was my 18th consecutive year running at this event. For the first 2 years, I ran the half marathon. In 2007, it was still called the Pacific Shoreline Marathon! Then I switched over to the marathon for the next 10 years from 2009-2018. Then in 2019, I made the switch back to the half marathon. Counting this year, I've completed the half marathon a total of 8 times. Although my streak will come to an end, I'm not too bummed about it. All good things come to an end. I've run hundreds of races and it would be good to run something new from time to time.
2024: 1:52:41
2023: 2:14:28
2022: 1:59:08
2021: 2:12:53
2020: 2:02:50
2019: 1:56:22

2018: 4:52:31
2017: 5:00:16
2016: 5:30:27
2015: 4:34:01
2014: 5:06:44
2013: 4:49:58
2012: 5:17:04
2011: 5:20:44
2010: 4:57:12
2009: 4:37:59

2008: 2:17:30
2007: 2:05:54

Name change to Surf City for 2008

Early evening, I was supposed to join my friends to celebrate a friend's 50th birthday at BLK Earth Sea Spirits. Unfortunately, plans got changed for me outside of my control, so I had to stay home with my special needs younger brother. On top of that, Governor Newsom had declared a State emergency and all of the local officials highly suggested that people to stay home, if at all possible to not be out driving when the storm hits.

Rose Bowl Half Marathon 2024

Saturday 1/20
I woke up super early to catch the Arsenal v. Crystal Palace match that started at 4:30 am. As much as I dislike those Gooners, it was quite impressive to see them convincingly beat up Palace. They were up 2 nil at the half and would pretty much seal the win with a third goal at the 59th minute. Martinelli would pour salt on the wound with 2 almost identical goals during stoppage time about a minute apart from each other. It was utter dominance with their 5 nil defeat of Palace. After the match, I got ready for my morning walk around my neighborhood.

After I was done with my walk, I got ready to drive out to Pasadena to pick up my race packet at the Big 5 Sporting Goods located at the corner of Colorado Blvd and Rosemead Blvd. The other 2 options for pick-up were at the Rose Bowl Stadium gate D and the Big 5 Sporting Goods in Santa Monica. I came to this location as it was the closest. It's always interesting to return to one of my old stomping grounds. A lot had changed in the area, but this Big 5 still remained as one of the constants. Pick-up started at 9 am, so I thought I would miss the rush and come a little bit later. I arrived at about 10:30 am only to find a long line that wrapped around the corner, all the way to Jack-in-the-Box. Parking was extremely scarce for this store, but for some reason, nobody parked at the curb right in front of their parking lot. That's where I parked before joining the line. Although the queue was quite long, it moved fairly quickly. I was inside the store in about 30 minutes. Once inside, it wasn't too long of a wait before I reached a volunteer to assign me to a bib number. As I was headed outside to get my race shirt, I bumped into my friend. I waited for her to get her bib and shirt before we went our separate ways.

Almost there

Stacy

Race shirt

Sunday 1/21
I was actually dreading to run this race especially with the weather forecast predicting rain for today. I brought along with me both a mylar blanket and a poncho. It would be a race time decision with which I would bring to the starting corral. I got ready and left my house at just before 4:30 am. I arrived at the Rose Bowl Stadium area at 5 am via Seco St exit from off the 210 freeway. Even though the left lane was flowing much better, I stayed in the right lane so that I could park in lot F. The left lane was being funneled over to lot I. I preferred lot F as it was right next to the start line and a large cache of portapotties. After I found a decent parking spot, I relaxed a bit and ate my usual pre-race protein bar.

Lot F

At just after 5:30 am, I got out of my car to use one of the portapotties. I then returned to my car to grab my handheld bottle and headed over to the Rose Bowl Stadium to check things out. I was wearing my wearing my long sleeve Disneyland Half Marathon shirt and a pair of waterproof gloves. It didn't feel all that cold to warrant the mylar blanket. I bumped into my friend after taking an obligatory picture of the famous stadium.

We used a portapotty one last time before we slowly started heading over to the starting corral. They had 4 volunteers guard the start line. I guess the timing mats were already turned on and they didn't want anyone crossing it. We positioned ourselves near the 7 min per mile pace sign. There was a lot of room between that sign and the starting line. We weren't going to get up too close to the line and impede the runners that will be running closer to 5 mins per mile.

Start line

Eventually, the usual suspects started showing up. With less than 15 minutes before the start of the race, I took a few selfies before turning on airplane mode and putting the phone away. Since it wasn't raining and not too cold, I took off the gloves and shoved them into my pocket. Eventually, they instructed all of the race participants to move up and fill in the empty spaces.

Dan and Karen

Ely and Stacy

Marcia

The race started a couple minutes after 7 am. I took off with the runners ahead of me. Boy, it felt good to get the legs moving. It actually felt easy. Once we got out to a wider section of Arroyo Blvd, I moved over to one side of the road so that faster runners can get through. I peeked at my watch and saw that I was running at a 6:50 pace. That was when I knew that I had to take my foot off of the gas as there were some climbs just up ahead. Even with me backing off of the pace, I covered that first mile in 7:34. I paid for that early indiscretion during the second mile. Not too long after making that left turn onto California Blvd, I took a walk break as it was one of the steeper climbs. I needed to let my HR calm down a bit. I started running again, but about a half mile later, I took another walk break before the right turn onto Colorado Blvd. My friend, Robert, who started a minute or so behind me caught up to me. I tried to hang with him, but he was moving a bit quicker than me. I had to let him go before the right turn at Arroyo Pkwy. The short out and back had us go down to Cordova followed by a right turn onto Green St. We stayed on Green St until the right turn on Lake Ave for an out and back down to San Pasqual St. I noticed that I was starting to catch up to my friend. Normally, when he passes me, the next time I see him would be at the finish line with him waiting for me. I'm sure that the only reason that I caught him was because he had a run a half marathon yesterday. I decided to take a walk break before I overtook him. Once I resumed running, I made a right turn back onto Green St. The next right turn on Wilson Ave was the final out and back down to Cal Tech, just a little past San Pasqual St. During the run back up to Green St, I finally passed my friend. He would return the favor shortly once I reached Green St and took another walk break. From there, what remained was a run back to the Rose Bowl. We leapfrogged each other on the way there. Whenever there was a decline or if I took a walk break, he would pass me. I would pass him when there was an incline. I took my last walk break during mile 11 as I was heading north next to the all familiar lot K. I had done many training runs here with my Team in Training charity group back in the day. I knew that there was a little over 2 miles to the finish line on the other side of the stadium. Just as I was ready to empty the tank, my calves threatened to cramp up. After I resumed running, I basically synced up with my friend. We decided to just run it in together.

And we're off!

Last mile with Robert

Final stretch with Robert

Crossing the finish line

Finish: 1:53:28
Click here for my Garmin data

I did not pace myself very well for this race. However, I had just gotten over a bout with the Disney crud. It was great to have my lungs back to about 100%. Now I just need to remain patient with getting my legs stronger so that I could eventually build up my endurance to cover a full marathon. Even though I had been getting more speed back, my right hip was still having issues with downhills and cambered roads.

Finish line

After getting our finisher medals and taking the obligatory post race pictures with it, we continued along the finisher chute. We were given a mylar blanket which I used to carry all of the post race food and drinks. The Siete potato chips were good! It was my first time eating them. I will have to make a mental note for the next time I go to the market. Upon exiting the stadium, we both noticed the banner that listed all of the legacy runners. We kind of wished that runDisney would have done the same for us last weekend.

Finisher medal

Back of finisher medal

Post race selfie with Robert

Post race professional photo with Robert

Post race snacks and drinks

Legacy participants

Robert wasn't feeling too well and wanted to leave, so I walked with him back to our cars. It would turn out that not only were we parked in the same lot, he was only about 4 cars over from me! After I dropped off all of the post race goodies at my car and put on my jacket, I went back to the Finish Festival area to see if there was A Snail's Pace Running Shop tent. I was supposed to meet up with Bob Morris, the Open/Masters Chair for USATF So Cal Road Running Committee. I did not see their tent there. However, lo and behold, I bumped into a guy that was wearing A Snail's Pace jacket just near the entrance of the beer garden. It just so happened that it was him. He was just about to check to see if I had finished the race and I was just about to email him. I was picking up my first place 45-49 AG award for the 2023 USATF So Cal Road Running Grand Prix. It would turn out that I had also come in second place 45-49 AG for 2022.

45-49 AG 2022, 2nd place

45-49 AG 2023, 1st place

After picking up those 2 AG awards, I met up with my friend. It took a while for us to find each other as the post race area was a bit of a zoo with so many people. We chatted a bit about our races before we started heading out. On our walk back to our cars, we came across a LA Superior Court Judge, Craig Mitchell. Back in 2012, he founded the Skid Row Running Club to help people overcome alcohol/drug abuse. He is now one of the candidates that's running for LA County District Attorney. He has my vote and I certainly hope that he wins. Since the current DA, George Gascón, has been doing a very poor job, I would be happy with someone else taking over. It was already quite sad to see what had happened to San Francisco when Gascón was their DA. We don't need LA to suffer the same fate.

LA Superior Court Judge, Craig Mitchell