RACE REPORT: CARLSBAD HALF MARATHON
Ron Saetermoe
We had a great ride Saturday, January 23rd. Two years ago Larry (Lar Dog), Kirk Matkin (Matkin Design) and I made the same ride. This year it was Larry, Daniel, Camille and I.
The idea was to ride down to Carlsbad to pick up our bibs for the half marathon the following day. Since it rained practically all week prior, our ride was in doubt, but the clouds broke and we went for it. I picked up a few more miles, and hills, just for fun. About 85 for me total.
I picked Lar Dog up at 6:00 a.m. Sunday for our 7:30 a.m. half-marathon start. The air was clear and crisp. I think it was high 40’s around start time and mid-50’s by the time we finished. Perfect!
Anyway, on the way down Larry and I were both complaining about how we felt after our spirited ride the day before. Neither one of us felt a PR coming on.
Larry was shooting for a 7:00 minute pace and I was shooting to finish – period!
We were seeded in the first wave (pretty cool idea, actually) and hit the first mile pretty hard. There was a large uphill climb over the I-5 so our first mile was 7:15. We were running along side a 1:35:00 pacer, which would be a great finishing time for me.
Mile two was quite a bit faster because we had to come down the same hill. Mile two: 6:30.
After that I simply waved goodbye to the Dog. Larry did a great job maintaining his 7:00 pace, but I fell back. My quads were toast from the day before. And while it hurt to run I knew that it would pay dividends later.
If you’ve never raced in Carlsbad you probably don’t know that the town really gets behind their sporting events (including the Carlsbad Triathlon). They literally close down the Pacific Coast Highway. The run along the ocean is great and inspiring.
Anyway, throughout the race I passed the 1:35:00 pacer guy, then he passed me, then I passed him. That’s pretty much how it went all morning. The crazy thing is that no one was running with him that I could see. I wouldn’t have run with him because he had no idea how to pace. One mile he’s running 8:00 pace and the next he’s at 6:30. What a goof!
The race seemed long and my pace slowed as the miles clicked by but I managed to finish in 1:37:51 (7:28 pace), which was good enough for 20th out of 225 finishers (9%).
I’ll take it!
