Long Beach Half Marathon - October 13, 2013

So while I was at the Disneyland Half Expo back in August I signed up for the Beach Cities Challenge.  It's a three race series of half marathons.  Do all three consecutively and you get an awesome bonus medal.  Being that I'm a total 'bling whore' that was more than I could resist.
The three races are the Long Beach Half, Surf City Half and the OC Half.

At the expo.

Beach Cities Challenge Medal

First thing was to attend the race expo on Saturday to pick-up my bib and t-shirt.  It was an okay expo.  I think I'm spoiled by the runDisney expos.  Nothing beats a runDisney expo.  I wandered around a bit checking out the vendors but nothing caught my fancy so I picked up my stuff and headed home.

As luck would have it the race shirt was a perfect match for the Sparkle Skirt I intended to wear.

Flat me before the race.

I got up early on Sunday morning and headed out to Long Beach.  Despite having just driven out there the day before I somehow managed to miss my exit.  Grrr!  I ended up taking some round about way to the race start. My little detour through Long Beach put me behind schedule. 

I parked and walked to the start line.

They had what looked to be a hundred port-a-potties but it seemed that not all of them were open. The lines for them were enormous. By the time I was able to use the restroom it was nearly time for the race to start.

The port-a-potties

The long wait in line at the port-a-potties didn't leave me any time to get properly warmed up.

My plan was to run the first 3 or 4 miles non-stop.  Then I was going to Galloway (run/walk/run intervals) it to mile 7.  After that I would run the first 5 minutes of every mile, then walk to the next mile marker. I was hoping this would allow me to finish in less than 3 hours.

The first few miles of the race were very uncomfortable. Missing my warm-up was working against me. My shins and calves were screaming at me.  By the time I reached mile 4 I was much more comfortable. For the most part I was able to stick to my plan. I readjusted some of the walking/running intervals depending on how my body felt. I was pretty worn out the last three miles but I kept to the task.

I turned the corner towards the finish line and checked my Garmin watch.  I realized I was going to finish in under 3 hours!  I nearly cried.  I sprinted to the line.  I finished in 2:56:21. Whoo hoo!  Mission accomplished.

Mid race photo.

At home after the race.

My Finisher's Medal. Bling a ding ding!