Long Beach Half Marathon

A couple of weeks ago I did the Long Beach Half Marathon. It was the first time that I have done this race. It was a big race with about 16,000 running either the half or full distances. Even with getting the reserved parking it was at least two miles to the start line. I ended up starting in about the 3rd wave. I did not care for the start area too many people all crammed into a small area for what I thought was no good reason. I think they can open it up a bit. Then I was off. I really liked the first six miles of the course it had some up and downs and a bunch of turns. For this race I was going to try a different strategy. I was going to do the "walk-run". So, the plan was to walk the aid stations after mile six. I did it and had good results. I was able to keep an 8 minute pace through most of the race. When it was over I came in at 1:51, over a 6 minute personal best. It was an 8:30 per/mile pace. Looking back there were two things that were interesting about this race. One was that for about the first 9 miles I had to weave in and out of people constantly. It took lots of concentration to do that and I am sure lots of extra energy. Second, I broke my own "run walk" rule and did not walk the last aid station. I should walked it, the last mile was the slowest of all. Since this race is somewhat local there is a chance that I will do  it again but most likely not. It is just too big.