La Jolla Half Marathon

I felt great running the La Jolla Half Marathon yesterday. I went into this race with a relaxed attitude because I was just doing this race as part of the Triple Crown Half Marathon series. Also I had just completed a half Ironman two weeks before. I also had reservations about ever running this race again. This race was my first half marathon, and I think it was around 2000. I was in no shape to conquer this distance then, and the race was way too difficult for me. Additionally, I saw someone collapse on Torrey Pines Hill, and later learned that he had passed away. I was pretty much freaked out about this race since then. My plan for this race: Take it easy and enjoy it, just get under two hours. I thought that would be difficult enough taking into consideration the difficulty of this race with all of the hills. I started slow, about a 9 minute pace, but I just kept picking it up. I stopped at every water station to make sure the water went down my throat and not my neck! The only time I ever slowed my pace during this race was going uphill. When I got to mile 12, I thought I might PR, but then alas, I turned the corner and saw the last uphill during the last mile of the race and laughed to myself because I knew it wasn't going to happen! Still, I finished in 1:52:43, came in 7th out of 179, 239th woman overall. I am really, really happy with my performance! I think I felt so good because of all of my half Ironman training and my body is still peaked and fit from Oceanside 70.3. If this had been the Carlsbad Half Marathon course, I know I would have a new PR!