October 11, 2011

Long Beach Half Marathon



This past weekend we traveled to California for the Long Beach Half Marathon. The trip was a great success, as we both ran excellent races, and our times suggest that we are very much on the right track towards running Olympic Trials qualifying times at the Philadelphia Marathon in November.

The course in Long Beach was pretty much flat (just a few overpasses) and fast. Most of the 1/2 marathon courses in Utah have a net downhill drop (to counter the altitude), but they are still "aided" races. This was a great opportunity to run big PRs on a fair, honest, loop course.

I got out very fast with a big pack of runners (going through 10K in 30:26, which was a 68 second PR by itself). I crashed a bit in the second half of the race, but still managed to pass 5 guys over the last 6 miles, and finished 3rd overall in 1:05:45. My full report with splits can be viewed here: Jake - Long Beach Recap

Andrea ran another incredible race, shaving 49 seconds off her best time - and took 2nd place overall in 1:17:03! She also got off to a quick start and her 10K split was a PR (35:46) and she held off all but one girl, a 16:00/33:18 runner who passed her during the 13th mile. You can read her full race report here: Andrea - Long Beach Recap

Altogether, this was another great step forward for us. This suggests that we are on target for sub 2:19 and sub 2:46. We have a great training plan in place for the next 6 weeks, and we're ready to attack this last cycle of marathon training.

Traveling to Southern California for sea levels races is something we'll definitely be doing in the future as well. Hopefully we'll return to the Long Beach 1/2 Marathon as this was a well organized, excellent event from our perspective.

Here are a bunch of photos from the race and the weekend, we'll post some more action shots once we find them (ie. Brightroom posts them):































4 comments:

  1. WOW!!! Absolutely incredible. You two are my heroes. How did the weather effect you? I guess my friends doing the marathon where out there for 3 plus hours longer than you guys and complained about the heat but I was wondering if you noticed a HUGE difference between the altitude? What about the humidity? I was also wondering if you guys do any form of coaching....I love getting your tips and advice on your blog or on my blog in the comments section. I can't wait to read all about your sub 2:19 and sub 2:46 in Philadelphia!

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  2. Janae - it was nice and cool at the start... pretty much perfect weather for a half marathon... it got a little warmer over the last 3-4 miles, but not too bad at all... and it wasn't too humid either. But for those running the full, we were getting pretty hot standing around watching the finishers coming in after 10am, so I imagine their last miles might have been a little rough!

    For our marathon I'm hoping for temps in the 40s (part of the reason we are going to Philly and didn't want to run Chicago, which turned out to be a great decision).

    The altitude definitely makes a big difference... I would say at least 5-6 seconds per mile, which is huge.

    We are self-coached, but are totally willing to offer tips and advice to anyone who wants it. I make no promises that our plan works for everyone, but it definitely works really well for us! :-)

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  3. Love the pictures. That last picture of Andrea running is simply amazing. Look at that stride. Wow!

    You two are awesome and right on track for OTQ at philly. I cannot wait to watch it happen. Very smart to choose philly over Chicago. Temps will be better and it also gives you an extra month of solid training.

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  4. AMAZING! Well done! And so neat that you are self coached...this makes me think that there is hope yet. :) Love that I found you (via Rachelle).

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