Monday, February 02, 2009

Race Notes: Surf City Half Marathon

Let me start by admitting that doing a half marathon on a sprained ankle may not have been the wisest decision ever. If this had not been the final race of the California Dreamin' series I wouldn't have run at all. However, I really, really wanted my California Dreamin' medal and jacket.

After I sprained my ankle, folks at Rehab United gave me some excellent advice about wrapping and icing and the swelling was greatly reduced by the end of week. Also, thanks to nasty cold that smacked me hard on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I had plenty of rest. It's easy to keep your ankle elevated if you can't get off the couch. By the race my ankle was as good as I could have hoped.

My plan was to walk the race to reduce the impact of running. When I got going, I figured out that running wasn't going to be a problem but swelling might. Time to replan my race strategy. I wanted to get the race wrapped up as quickly as possible; therefore, I was running a lot in the early miles.

My nutrition was off somehow, because my energy lagged in miles 8-10. I'm pretty sure I was drinking enough, but maybe I should have gotten some additional electrolytes. The problem could have been that it was a pretty boring course, with a long (boring) out and back. I really felt for the marathoners who had to run 1 section of the course 4 times - the boredom would be too much for me.

At the end of the day, I came home with two of the prettiest medals in my collection. The surfboard is a classic woodie surfboard. The California Dreamin' medal is gorgeous, huge and heavy. Man, I love that thing.

4 comments:

  1. I agree...the course was extremely boring, but the support and spectators were great. The medal was definitely worth it.

    I hated the fact that I had to drive down to HB twice from the Valley to pick up my bib and t shirt and then again for the race. 65 miles each way x 4 trips....let me pay an additional $20 and mail me my bib and t shirt. The expo was pretty much the same ho-hum vendors.

    Not sure I would run Surf city again.

    Bob

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  2. Hi, I just ran the SF half marathon today and recently realized that I qualify for the series if I run Surf City in Feb. 2010. (I ran the LB half in Oct. 2009). I have been trying to find pics of the jacket though. Can you direct me to a picture of it? Basically, I want to know if it's worth it, or just some cheezy thing.

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  3. Hi Pretty Hikes - Congrats on SF. It's a great race.

    The jacket is not nearly as cheesy as I thought it would be. It's actually pretty nice and I was pleasantly surprised. It's a black heavy-weight windbreaker. Also, they had separate sizes for men and women, so you could get a good fit.

    A bunch of my friends got jackets this weekend and I'll check to see if they're the same ones.

    I'll snap a picture and post it.

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