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Ventura Half Marathon – Race Report

[Edit: already with photos!]

As I think I’ve mentioned, I am terrified of the LA Marathon, which is now just five weeks away. It’s not that I’m particularly scared of the distance, it’s more that I have to run that distance on pavement, on a comparatively “flat” course and need to try to do it quickly. I used to race on the roads a lot, but in the last three years, it’s been pretty rare. So, with training progressing and me getting ideas about goals, I knew I needed to race a road half marathon – to hopefully gauge my fitness and speed and give me some confidence for LA.

I looked around and what seemed to be the best option was the Ventura Half Marathon, which was this morning in Ventura, CA. I’m really happy I chose this race. The race director – Josh Spiker (a 2:20-something marathoner!) – puts on a great race. Josh is a Ventura local and from the way he greeted people by name during the awards ceremony, he’s obviously a big part of the running community there.

Everything about the race, from sign-up, to race morning packet pick-up, to the start, the aid stations, the finish line festival, raffle and awards ceremony were smooth and easy. Obviously it helps that the half marathon and 5k races combined only had around 600 participants, but I’ve been to small races that are chaotic. The proceeds from the race go to Habitat for Humanity. The long sleeve technical shirt for half marathoners is actually a quality shirt with a nice, simple design that I’ll actually wear and they gave out finishers tiles as a nice change from the usual medals that just end up in a box in my closet:

There were awards for top-three in five-year age groups – I got a $10 gift certificate to Tri Running in Camarillo and a beer mug for my third place in the 35-39 age group:

The top three overall men and women each also got free Scott running shoes.

The course isn’t anything special, but it’s nice enough; an out-and-back along the Ventura-Ojai bike path. You can see mountains in the distance but honestly, any views would have been totally wasted on me today.  Josh warned that the narrow-ish bike path might be crowded at times, but I never felt that this was an issue.  It’s a gentle climb on the way out (total gain probably 250 feet) and a gentle descent on the way back.

Another thing I loved is that the results and photos (from Bob Carey Photography) are already on the website! We expect this from the biggest races, but for smaller, local races like this (and even some of the medium size races), it seems like we’re usually waiting days and days for either.

I would recommend this race to anyone in the area.

My race:

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect or to hope for. I wanted to test my fitness and hoped to beat the 1:29:05 PR I set at last year’s Pasadena Half Marathon. I also wanted to see how my K-Swiss K-Ruuz 1.5’s (my likely shoe choice for LA) would feel in a race.

This week I found out that a few other fast Coyotes: Kate, Joe and Chad would be running. So I figured I’d try to tag along with one of them and see what happened.

I ran the first seven miles with Kate (just like at Pasadena) and then watched her fade into the distance and beat me by a minute or so (just like at Pasadena). I spent the last couple of miles trying unsuccessfully to catch Joe.

I crushed my PR – ending up with a 1:26:07. And negative split the course in a big way. They didn’t have a half-way marker, but here are my splits for the first six miles based on my watch (remember, slight uphill):
6:39
6:51
6:43
6:41
6:47
6:42
Total (1-6): 40:23

Mile 7 was 6:40

Miles 8-13 were:
6:19
6:19
6:17
6:33
6:30
6:35
Total (8-13): 38:33

0:37 (final 0.1)

My slowest mile in the second half was four seconds faster than my fastest mile in the first half! Even with the slight downhill on the way back in mind, I’m psyched about the successful negative split.

Obviously, I struggled in the last three miles. My legs were tired, of course, but I was suffering more mentally than physically at that point. The cure? Speed and tempo during the next few weeks to convince myself that I can maintain a faster pace than I’m comfortable with.

The BIG QUESTION: Could I have gone faster? What if I’d gone out a little faster and willed myself not to fade in those final three miles? I took my only gel of the race at around mile seven. Maybe taking two gels during the race would have helped me keep energy at the end? I know that I have a faster half marathon in me, what I don’t know is whether it was in me today.

But now… the even BIGGER QUESTION: WHAT DOES THIS ACTUALLY MEAN FOR LA?

And I don’t know the answer to that one either. It means I can imagine running a sub-3:00 marathon. It means that I can hold better than a sub-3:00 pace for half the distance on a less hilly course. But can I hold close to that pace for another 13.1 miles? Honestly, I have no idea! But I guess I’m gonna try.

Official time: 1:26:07
Pace: 6:34/mile
Overall: 19/383
Men: 16/181
Age Group (35-39): 3/25