Rachel and I drove to San Diego after watching Emma play soccer in her first week of try outs for a club team. The team is awesome (they won 7-0) and you can definitely tell a difference in Emma and the way that she plays. She was on fire and even scored a goal! It was like night and day watching her play on this team.
Rachel was kind enough to drive there since I am not a fan of driving long distances. We hit some traffic and it ended up taking us a little over three hours to get there and find the expo. Parking was difficult so she jumped out while I circled the parking lot. I usually don't get anything at the expo anyway and I already received my bib in the mail.
We made our way to the hotel that Rachel had booked and I honestly believe it was the perfect location. It was right across the street from both the start and finish line and was reasonably priced. I know I can always trust her with finding a good hotel when we need to travel for a race.
We decided to go out to dinner that night and chose to stay close to our hotel. We ended up at Fox Sports Grill where we were able to watch part of a Dodgers Spring Training game (Rachel's team). It was nice to watch the game, have some food and drink a beer. We then went to get some frozen yogurt before heading back to our hotel room to try to get some sleep. We knew that 6am would be there before we knew it, especially with the time change.
Thankfully our phones changed to the right time and our alarms went off when we had set them, so we were up and ready to go with plenty of time to spare. We made our way over to the start area and then realized there was nothing to do but stand around so we headed back to the lobby to sit for a while.
They started the race in waves and we started in wave 15, the last wave. The first wave started at 720, but we didn't cross the start until closer to 8am. By then it was already pretty warm. Thankfully, someone had timed the trolly's so that we didn't have to wait on the course for one, but it did mean extra time standing around before starting. It worked out well though, and thankfully they played pretty good music.
And then it was our turn. We decided to stick to 30:1 intervals and to stay around a 13:30 pace. It worked well for us even with the heat. Rachel has been experiencing some pain in her heel though and she had already told me that if she needed to walk then we would split off and I would continue the intervals.
She made it to mile 6 with running intervals before we split off. I felt guilty going on, but I knew it was what we had discussed. Unfortunately, at the next water stop (mile 6.5) they had run out of water. And again at the next water stop (around mile 8.5). I had brought my running belt with three small water bottles attached, so I wasn't in bad shape, but I was concerned that this was how the rest of the race was going to be.
Right around mile 9 was where the hill began. The mile long hill that feels like it's never going to end. Seriously, you turn a corner and feel like it has to end at some point and BAM! more hill.. I decided to walk because I just did not have the energy to continue intervals. I run hills, but nothing like this and not for a mile straight. And then, at the top of the hill, there was water. Lots of water. And ice. And gummy bears. And a guy on his front lawn with a hose. It was glorious.
I decided to walk another mile to try to get my heart rate lower. It was still pretty elevated from the hill and the heat. I started intervals again at mile 11 and continued them until the finish line.
I was able to stand at the finish to watch Rachel come across and I am so proud of her. We had text a little while on the course so I knew that she was still going strong. I just hope that the pain in her heel goes away soon. It's never fun to have an injury.. It's even less fun to watch your running partner suffer through one.
All in all it was a really good race. I'm glad that we decided to take the challenge and run both San Diego and Mammoth in order to receive an extra medal for doing both. I'm also glad that we were not out there in the heat trying to run the LA Marathon. Although I did have a little heart break for not being out there on that course, I know it's not going anywhere and that there's always next year.
And now for the photographic evidence that we were there:
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