After the expo we got some dinner off Main Street in downtown Huntington Beach, an area I had actually never been to before. Overall the town was very nice, and it was certainly aesthetically gorgeous, looking out over the ocean with Catalina Island in the background. We went back to our hotel, prepared our running gear for the next day, and did a little scheming...
We woke up at 5:30am, early but not terrible, got quickly changed, and we were in the car headed to the parking lots by 5:50. Since we were close by from the hotel, we got there by 6:00, just as dawn arrived over the ocean. We sat in the car for a good hour or so - the challenge is more to get a reasonable parking spot than to actually make it on time to the race. Once we had the spot we were no longer in such a hurry, so we relaxed, and eventually made our way over to a shuttle that took us to the start line, right beside where the expo was on the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH).
On longer runs such as these, there are often pace teams to help you achieve your goals. A volunteer holds up a sign with a time, and they will finish usually within 15 seconds of that time, on either side. In my corral, which was the 8000's bibs, the pace runner that came near us was for 1:58. That was a couple of minutes faster than I intended, but I figured it would be a hassle to go find a 2:00 pace runner, and figured I would stick with the 1:58 girl as long as I could and then I could have a few minutes to pan off if I needed to towards the end.
With that plan of action, I was ready to begin. The route took us northwest along the PCH to start off, away from the sun, so I had no trouble sticking with the 1:58 leader for the start. Now, starting a long race with a ton of runners can be a challenge for a few reasons. First, there is just a sheer enormous mass of people, and even on a road as wide as the PCH, there isn't always enough room at the beginning. Second, and more importantly, there are always runners who are new and simply do not know what they are doing. They start far sooner than they should be, they do a walk-run rotation with an 8000-something bib, etc. Of the 20,000 total runners on Sunday, over 10,000 were running their first half marathon. That is extremely exciting, and I am happy for all of them, but the short summary of the ramble above is that they get in the way because they are going slower than they should be. Running to slow becomes a problem for all those behind you, who now must weave around the slower runners, adding unnecessary distance (all that weaving adds up!) and time to a run.
Water stations are the points of emphasis for the above, and most specifically, the first water station is. The usual temptation for runners who haven't trained properly is to run as fast as you can for as long as you can. The result of this is that by the time you get to the first water station, you are completely exhausted, and even though it is only a couple of miles into the race, everyone wants some water. This creates a bottleneck and corresponding backlog, which can often become quite chaotic. In addition, water gets everywhere at the stations, creating a wet and potentially slick surface, which makes weaving around people both difficult and dangerous too. Want my advice? Even if you don't, you are reading my blog, so I am going to give it anyway. Always skip the first water station. If you have trained properly, you really don't need it. Later on, the water stations will be a little hectic, but not as bad, so just run through this one.
At Surf City, it turns out the second water station isn't even a mile past the first one, so running through it really paid off for me - I managed to keep my solid pace, wasn't even that hot or thirsty yet, and sure enough the second water station was maybe half as bad as the first one. Besides skipping the first water station, when going through all other water stations, always get your water at the very end. The same reason for the first rule is that for the second. Everyone is thirsty approaching a water station, and people will end up clogging up the first couple of tables going for water. If you start in the middle, and wait until the very end to cut over, there is often nobody even there, and you can grab your drink hassle and danger free.
Getting back to this particular run, I was cruising along at a pace faster than training, but it was going well and was keeping up with the pace team. I got to the 6.20 miles mark, which is a 10K, and at the split I had done it in 55:02, beating my old 10K personal record of 55:39 dating back to November 21, 2010. I got to 6.55 miles, the quarter marathon mark (and thus halfway through this race) in 58:11, meaning I would have an extra 1 minute and 49 seconds beyond my target training pace on the back half and I could still break my goal.
A few miles later, we hit "the turn." We reached the end-point of our northwesterly run along the PCH, did a full 180-degree turn, and at about 8.2 miles we were running directly into the sun, on one massive straightaway towards the finish line. Naturally everyone slowed down, and this was where I, along with maybe half of our little group lost our pace leader. That said, I was as far as the 10.0 mile mark and still had an average pace below the 9:09 I needed to hit the 2 hour mark. Unfortunately, I couldn't kick it into another gear - but I kept chugging along knowing that I was definitely in reach of setting my personal record.
At mile 11.74 disaster struck. On a very slight incline, I landed on my right foot, and an instant and spontaneous sensation of pain surged from my second toe all the way up my body to my spine. I had to slow to a walk, and not even a speed walk, but a slow walk contemplating what the heck had just happened. At the time, it was almost a popping sensation that sparked the surge of pain. All I knew was that even if I had to do a walk-run rotation, with under a mile and a half to go, I could still pull off the PR, and that is exactly what I did. I ran slowly, tried to walk quickly, and once I got past 12.5 miles built up a slow jog through the pain. I crossed the finish line at 13.10 miles with an official finish time of 2:04:46, clinching a new personal record by about a full minute, something I am extremely proud of. I set the PR even despite the injury, and I consider it even more impressive when you consider the fact that four months earlier at the Long Beach Half Marathon, I was so hurt I could only do it in 2:35:43. In four months, I beat my running time by 31 minutes, which is simply incredible.
In addition to the above, for finishing we got a medal for Surf City, which was nice, but more than that, I got my Beach Cities Challenge medal for finishing Orange County, Long Beach, and Surf City consecutively! The medal is massive, and it is very nice, incorporating three elements from each of the three other medals. Quite an accomplishment! Furthermore, of the four of us who went together, three of us set PR's, and the fourth person beat her time by a half an hour as well. Great day for all of us!
...Which brings us to today. This morning I went to the podiatrist to try and figure out what the heck happened to me towards the end of that run. I had awful toenail problems at Long Beach, but in the week following, I had three of them taken out to prevent something like this from happening again. I got new shoes, custom orthotics, and throughout training the past few months I have had no problems at all. My training got up to 12 miles, so there wasn't any reason this should have happened. Yet it obviously did.
[Reader discretion: I am going to tell you what happened in detail here. If you don't want to know, hard as it may be, stop reading here until my next post!]
As it turns out, my second toe on my right foot, the one that was the clear source of that popping sensation I described earlier - well, it turns out the toenail detached from the root within the toe at some point during the race, due to blunt trauma. What does that mean? The combination of a long run, with some elevation change, and the fact that my shoe was still too small meant that what was already a weak toenail (it had just come in back in November) simply detached. However, I didn't really notice it at that exact time, because the toenail was stuck within the skin of my toe, and sat on top of an ulcer. On that slight incline at mile 11.74, the angle caused the ulcer to open up, thus the pop I felt, and the toenail came in contact to a nerve, thus the extreme pain. As of today it was still stuck in there, so the podiatrist gave me a couple shots to the bone, took it out, and cleaned out the ulcer. He took out the second toenail on my left foot too for good measure, wrapped me up, and called it a day. As I write this it has been about seven hours and that numbness is entirely gone... ouch!
Well, there is your update for now. Overall a great race, very happy with my time, and love the medals. Not so happy with having to get two more toenails taken out (that's five total for those keeping score at home), and the associated pain that comes with them doing it. It's also a bummer that I have to get new shoes - I really liked these a lot, they are pretty much brand new (got them in November), and they were quite expensive too. Apparently if my foot doesn't swell I can use these, but with the swelling I need another size bigger. In other words, for runs in the 3-5 mile range, these shoes are fine, but once you get to 5+ miles, I need a bigger pair of shoes.
Until next time, have a great rest of your week and then weekend everybody!
I personally only have 2 "normal" toenails... but none of these "injuries" occurred in half marathons or shorter distance races. Shoe fit is important, but you may want to try some other things first, like trimming toenails, wearing technical socks or greasing your toes.
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