La Jolla Race Report

Wow, where do I start? First of all, I was SUPER SUPER nervous for this race. Mostly because I knew what to expect. I did this race as my 1st half marathon ever back in 2001 and all I can remember is how sick I was afterwards. Last time, this course put my body into a shock like it had never seen! Taken from the website:


The La Jolla Half Marathon is one of America's most picturesque and challenging runs. Starting adjacent to the Del Mar Fairgrounds main entrance, the course follows a scenic route along the coast before reaching the challenging climb to the summit of Torrey Pines State Park. After leaving the park, the course continues the beautiful residential district of La Jolla Shores, and finishes on the grass in the park at La Jolla Cove.


Basically, this course was almost all uphill, (at least it felt that way!) with the exception of a pretty brutal down hill that KILLED my knees and shins at mile 11! I am so glad that it is over, and that I finished strong...the ONLY reason I did this race again, was to fulfill the requirement for the Triple Crown Award. It was my goal this year to do it...and I have finished 2 of the required 3 races! :)


OK, on the to race report!
I knew come Sunday morning that I was going to have to get up super early (4:30am), and the last race, my daughter was not having it! As you can see in her beautiful photo to the right! ;) SO, she stayed the night at Nana's and my son Mason stayed at YaYa's. To tell you the truth, it was so weird having no kids at home...so quiet! But I was able to get all my stuff ready and packed and to bed at a decent time (asleep by 10:30). I was surprised how soundly I slept, I only woke up once (around 3:30) to go pee and was thankful that I had more time to sleep :) The alarm went off at 4:30 and I brewed my coffee and made my toast with peanut butter. Played on the computer while eating and drinking my coffee, and then took a hot shower. Got dressed, and stretched a little while waiting for the hubby to get ready. We were out of the house by 5:45am. We only live about 30 minutes from the race start, but I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time before the race start at 7:30...and luckily we got there by 6:30! So sad, my hubby got the camera out to take a picture of us, and the battery was dead! BOO! So I have no photos from the start. :(
My tummy was was very uneasy, mostly due to nerves...so I left the hubby and headed to the port o potty lines. Glad I got that out of the way! The lines were crazy by the time I was done! This is when i felt really lonely :( I was running solo, so I pretty much had to sit there and stretch for an hour or so by myself. I mainly just people watched and tryed to calm myself down...I kept thinking to myself, What's the worst that can happen? Well, check this out:
HERE Apparently 2 runners suffered heart attacks towards the end of the race! CRAZY!!!
Anyways, it was 5 minutes until race time and the announcer kept telling people to start lining up. There were about 6500 racing in the half marathon, so there were only 2 waves. Those in wave 1 were 8 min/mile and under, and wave 2 was over 8 min/mile. So I waited to start with the 2nd wave, but then I noticed that people who didn't look like 8 min and under runners were lining up. ( Not to be judgemental, but really, some of these people did not look like they could run under 8 minute miles!) So I jumped into wave 1 in fear of being stuck at the end having to bob and weave a butt load of peeps! 
It took me about a mile and a half to warm up and for the heavy legs to feel not so heavy...I mean I hadn't ran more than 3 miles in 10 whole days due to my bout with the stomach flu! But I finally set into a groove. Hills Hills and more Hills! Despite all the hills, the course was absolutely beautiful! All I kept thinking to myself was, "just make it past mile 5...then you have the mondo crazy hill and then it will almost be over. Just get past Torrey Pines hill!" I got to Torrey Pines Hill and decided to power walk up the steepest part. Which I am SO glad I did! I was even passing people that were trying to run up it, that is how steep it was. Why waste my energy trying to run up it when I still had half the race to finish?! This is when I was SO glad that I had my handheld water bottle. There were no water stations at all here! That was one thing I noticed, there were hardly enough aid stations on this course; and for how tough it is, I would think they would have a lot more. At this point, I ate 1 shot block (I had a whole bag of them, but before the race had a 5 hour energy drink shot, and I didn't feel like I needed any nutrition throughout the rest of the race)...I would HIGHLY recommend that little bottle of greatness! ;) Check it out HERE
Thankfully I made it to the top and had a slight downhill afterwards! What a relief! ;) This is where I saw my friend Meghan. She wasn't running this race (she just ran the L.A. Marathon) she just came to watch. It was so cool, she and her cute dog started running with me for a few minutes, and it really gave me some more motivation! I was still feeling good by this point, then came a brutal steep downhill. When I say brutal, I mean you could hardly slow yourself down, and with every step it felt like your toes were going to come out the front of your shoes! My shins hurt so bad this morning, along with my toe nails being tender! But it was a good break from the hills! Mile 12 was along the boardwalk which was pretty cool...lots of spectators there! I wish I had my camera! AHHH! I was getting pretty tired at this point...really wanting to walk, but didn't because I knew that somewhere in mile 13 I would walk up part of the last uphill. Thinking back, I probably could have run more up that last hill, but I really wanted to sprint to the finish and finish really strong! And I did...once I was at the top of the hill, I started booking it, that last .25 miles was all out (according to Garmin, at a 7:26 pace! Which is great for me, ha! )  Crossed the finish line...and hubby was there to watch me...I almost welled up in tears, I was so happy to have finished! Pushed STOP on my Garmin...2:10:47. My goal for the race was 2:15 to 2:10. I DID IT! I really surprised myself, I was really expecting to not do as well considering the past few weeks I was not feeling 100%...so I was really happy with the overall outcome of the race! Here are my splits:
Miles
1~9:02
2~8:53
3~9:09
4~10:00
5~8:56
6~12:17 (Torrey Pines 420ft elevation gain Hill)
7~10:46
8~9:49
9~9:28
10~10:13
11~9:00
12~9:48
13~11:24 (Last hill, walked up a lot of it)
.25~ 7:26 pace :)


Total distance 13.24 miles
Total time 2hr 10 min 47 sec
AVG pace 9:52


Offical chip time ended up being 2:11:00 on the dot!
2911/5839 OVERALL
1199/3150 WOMEN
300/722 AGE GROUP
Thank you everyone for your support and good wishes! I am so thankful to have finished this race and looking forward to a PR in my last race America's Finest City Half Marathon August 15th. I would be so happy to beat my Carlsbad time of 2:05:04. 


Me and the hubby at the finish at La Jolla Cove

Thank you again everyone for your support...now off to ice my shins! OUCH!

REALLY?! A stomach virus!!!

Only 4 days until the La Jolla Half Marathon, and the Dr. says I have a stomach virus! This really really stinks! It all started a week ago after my supposed to be 10 miler that turned into an 8.5 mile run due to tummy issues. Then on Friday, I got super achy and tired and nauseas. I ended up taking Saturday off from work and slept all day, but still felt tired. I was okay to work Sunday...but continued to have diarrhea "tummy" issues. Told myself that I felt sick because I didn't give myself enough rest time since the last time i was sick...so I was going to take a few more days off from ALL exercise and just focus on getting better. Well, 7 days later, and I still have some nausea and tummy ickies! 

What ended up making me go to the Dr. was my daughter Kaitlyn. She started having diarrhea too a few days ago and kept saying her tummy hurt...so i took her to the Dr. this morning, and that is that...we BOTH have the stomach virus. What sucks even more, is the Dr. said that it can last 1 to 2 weeks! Say WHAT!!!!! Great, so not only so I have a hard half marathon to run ALONE on Sunday, but now I have to run it worrying if I am going to crap my pants every mile. I guess I could not do it, but my goal for the year was to complete the Triple Crown. This incorporated running 3 half marathons in 2010. I completed the 1st one in January, and I really want to finish the series in August. I guess as long as I finish! Right?! For now, i will just be praying that my tummy settles by Sunday!  Should be an interesting race recap! :)