Nov 18

The heat was “ON” for the 2008 Silver Strand 1/2 marathon. A beautiful morning in Coronado, but one look at the flat surf with offshore winds blowing back the surf backwards kind of said it all… Santa Ana winds were growing. I started off quick, maybe too quick and the first 10K were fast and nice. I passed the mile 7 marker with some light winds. By mile 8, the wind was decidingly strong and blowing right into my face. Combined with the sun starting to heat up, everyone started to hide behind each other to get out of the wind. Drafting was the name of the game until the right turn into Imperial Beach in which the houses gave us some shelter. Running on a slight up incline into the base the wind was pushing us up, then at the turn around it was 2 miles of finish against the wind and heat again. My focus turned from “this is going to be a PR” in the first half to “are my going to finish this?”. As I got passed by runners who were obviously immune to the heat (or who decided on a more leisurely start than I did), I just slowed down to a jog. Then I passed by 2 runners being helped into an ambulance and decided to slow down some more. An hour later on the bus back to the parking lot, I felt for those last runners who were still out there on the last few miles, they had the hardest race of all of us.

Anyhow, I ran in some new Long Distance shorts which are awesome. I picked these up from RaceReady.com . These long distance shorts have pockets everywhere, and in places that don’t bother you when you are running and the pockets are full. I stuffed in these: gel pads, keys and a cell phone. Very comfy and lightweight too. And ok, you might not look like the trendiest guy on the run.