Sugar Daddy Half Marathon 2025

Saturday 6/14
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!

Fontana Days Run Half Marathon 2025

Saturday 6/7
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.