Weekend Recap-Part 1

Saddleback Marathon
It is the toughest marathon in California.

I am not sure what I was thinking when I decided to undertake a challenging course so early in the season. I somehow convinced myself it would be a good indicator of where my fitness/insanity level.
I have been toying with this idea of doing long distance races back to back since August. So after the race, I was preparing for my long 18mile training run in Huntington Beach. (more on that later)

On Saturday morning I had the chance to carpool with my race buddy Kim. The last time I saw her was at Bulldog in August. I feel very fortunate to have easy going training partners. Kim made the race very entertaining, we even had a chance to sing and dance a along a christmas tree that was decorated along the course.

We the opportunity to start early to help mark the course, I was very please with the early start. It gave us the some time to clear alot of broken tree branches along the course. Kim and I started with 2 other people but we got separated going down hill. We waited for about 15min at the first aid station, and we left a message with the volunteers to tell the others that we waited and decided to keep pushing forward. Going towards the top of Holy Jim we were finally passed by the lead runners :(. Overall it was very well supported by having all the right goodies at each aid station. My finish time was 6:15 and again it was a blast out there. Here goes the a race profile picture of the course.