La Jolla Half Marathon
What a beautiful run I must say!! Yesterday my second attempt at this half marathon was made. I am very happy to say that I crushed my previous time of 2:51:13 to 1:59:11. The first time I did have a running injury and that set me back. I came back and crushed it. I can only imagine now what I will be doing for the AFC Half Marathon in August.
The first 5 miles weren’t too bad. I believe I was running under a 10 minute pace. My original goal at the start was to run it in 2:10 or faster. At mile 4 there was a significant downhill that I was able to pick up some time. But from mile 5-6, the dreaded Torrey Pines Hill was among us. It took me 11 or so minutes to run that hill that went from 0 to 420 feet of elevation. The worst part about it seemed like when you saw a turn it would be the top but it was just more hill. There was about 4 turns and finally you made it to the top. I felt like jumping up and down like Rocky when I got threre. It flatened out at the top and then the next 3 miles turned out to be a little up and down which wasn’t too bad.
At mile 9 it started the steep downhill into La Jolla Shores and I kept telling myself that I had enough time to try to run it under 2 hours. Once I got to the flat area I was unfortunate to see someone take a spill behind me because he caught the uneven pavement as he was running. I pushed on.
As I approached the boardwalk I knew I had about 2 miles to go and I was within the 20 minutes till the end and to my new goal of under 2 hours. I ran the last 2 miles with enough effort to make it. The hardest part was the last 1.1 miles because running uphill to get to Prospect was the toughest. It wasn’t so long but it was tough because I kept telling myself, “You can do this Mark, you are almost there?” I go to the top of the hill and I made it swiftly down the steep short hill to a flatter area just to speed it up because it looked like 2 minutes that was left on my watch to finish under 2 hours were coming quick.
The last downhill to the finish was tough because it was some type of cobbled cement that was uneven and cracked that if you fell would be a bad thing. So I tried to manage my effort and waited till it got a lot flatter and sprinted to the end where it was hard to tell where the finish line was because there wasn’t any large banner overhead to see till you really got close. I finished strong and I was glad I did. What’t next for me now. I want to get faster so I have to run more often but who knows. I have 16 weeks till the next one.
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