February is suppose to be the wettest month for the LA area but it turned out to be one of mostly warm, sunny days. This made for great racing weather.
But February also made for a good case of sunburn if I wasn’t careful. I made sure I wore my Rodan + Fields’ Reverse Broad Spectrum SPF 50+ Sunscreen especially when I was out running.
Surf City Half Marathon started the month off for me. Though this race is a bit of a nightmare to get to, it’s a great, easy race with most of the course right by the ocean.
I used this race as a training run because the LA Marathon was the following weekend. I started out with Patty and Debi, both fellow SoleRunners, running at a fast pace. After about 6 miles, Debi and I slowed down allowing Patty to go ahead. From there, we ran and walked. It was really a perfect training run as I didn’t stress out my legs. My goal was to finish around 3 hours and that is what I did.
This was also the third race in a series for me of the Beach City Challenge. The first two being Orange County Half and
Beach City Challenge Medal
Long Beach Half. When you race all three consecutively, you receive an extra medal. Every year that extra medal is different. This year, it is a starfish.
The LA Marathon organizers decided to hold the marathon a month earlier, February instead of March, due to the Olympic Trials. The trials were held on Saturday with the LA Marathon being held the following day.
If you have never seen the Olympic hopefuls run, go support them at least once in your life time. They are fast! The men ran a marathon in just over 2 hours while the women ran it in around 2 1/2 hours! That is just amazing!
There are at least 200 men and 200 women in the trails. But only 3 men and women each make it on the team. Can you imagine being just 5 seconds behind and missing the team?
My post of the LA Marathon was posted on 2/22 which you can read here.
The following weekend after the LA Marathon was another busy weekend.
Fish Canyon Falls
Saturday, the SoleRunners hiked to Fish Canyon Waterfalls. It was an easy hike of about 5 miles and it took us about 3 hours. It’s a busy trail so take your time to enjoy the views.
Sunday, I ran the Firecracker 10K so I could get the shirt. I know a silly reason to run a race. But it is a very soft shirt with
This shirt is so soft.
a monkey imprinted on it. It is the Year of the Monkey.
This 10K is a basically an uphill, very steep 3+ miles run followed by the same steep downhill. I was surprised that I did so well especially after the LA Marathon. I did this 10K in 1:15:47.
The rest of this month was spent starting to train for, hopefully, the Marine Corps Marathon in October. My focus is not so much on long runs as it is on strength training and getting my pace down.
This was the third month I have run over a 100 miles. My goal for 2016 is to do over 1000 miles. So far I’m on track to do so. Only 791 miles to go!