Surf City Race Report

Overall:	609 out of 2445
Women:	140 out of 901
F 18-24:	15 out of 78
Age/Grade:	57.93%
Finish:	3:53:46 Pace: 8:55

This isn't going to be very detailed, but I'll briefly describe my race (More than a month later...)

Here are the mile splits from my Garmin:

1	7:43
2	7:43
3	7:39
4	7:53
5	7:17
6	7:36
7	7:42
8	7:45
9	7:45
10	7:44
11	7:55
12	9:07
13	7:47
14	7:57
15	8:09
16	8:10
17	8:25
18	8:26
19	8:33
20	8:38
21	9:12
22	10:19
23	16:06
24	14:20
25	12:16
26	9:57
.2	7:20
26.2	3:53:45

The first 3-4 miles were really great, alongside Natalya and Ryan. The pace seemed too fast, but I figured that I might as well run quickly while I was feeling well, that it would allow me to slow down later. I wanted to go sub-3:35, which would be about an 8:11/mile average pace, so each mile that I was running 30 seconds under that was allowing me to run an 8:40 mile later in the race. This was my logic. Ryan was with me up til mile 7... then he dropped back. And I was lonely. Mile 12 is a bit slow because I used the facilities. At mile 16 we moved from the PCH to the coastal bike path... so basically all that was left was 5 miles out and 5 miles back. I was already feeling pretty crummy and was doubting my ability to run sub-3:35, but I thought maybe if I made it to the turnaround point I would be OK. But after reaching the turn, I just... couldn't keep the pace, definitely not psychologically; I don't know about physically. I haven't done the math, but I think maybe I could have eeked out a 3:35 if I had kept under 9:00 for the last few miles... but that is much easier said than done. I didn't want to lose my ability to walk for a week (like I did after Chicago), because I was leaving for Thailand in a couple days, so I walked for a bit and shuffled for a bit. Then for the last half mile I started doing something that resembled running.

And... that was my race! I need to actually train for a marathon one of these days...

The rest of February and the first week or so of March I was wandering about Thailand and Taiwan, and didn't run at all. Yesterday I got back to the US and stayed in a hotel near LAX in Inglewood... I found a microscale shoved in the back of my mini-fridge with suspicious white powder in the cracks. So there's that. I'm looking forward to going 'home' to CO today, and maybe getting some miles in. I'm feeling a little too squishy these days.

:)