Pacing at the Beautiful Santa Cruz Half-Marathon

With a little delay I am finally getting a chance my report on the Santa Cruz Half-Marathon. This one was all about the lady. She had trained hard for many months to get ready for this event, and I was anxious to see her do well here.

We decided to drive down the morning of the event, making for a very early wake-up call. Somewhere near San Jose, it was finally late enough (6 a.m.) to score some coffee at Starbucks (not quite Peet's, but who cares?). As we arrived in Santa Cruz, I was quietly reminiscing about my college days when I went on a much talked about bike trip along part of the California coast. I distinctly remember not wanting to leave Santa Cruz.

We got there early enough to get a great parking spot and quickly got our numbers, which we pinned on ultra style (folded). You got to represent, ya know? My job today would be to pace the lady and more importantly keep her company. I took a ton of pictures, which I will just let speak for themselves (that's 1,000 words each!).

not used to crowds anymore...they're like picture-worthy

trail > pavement

The Lady ran the race very consistently and finished very, very strong for a PR leaving me in the dust as we approached the finish line (she finished five or six places ahead of me! :)).

In all, this is a fantastic race, part of which is even run on a trail. It doesn't get much flatter than this around here and the beauty of the race definitely rivals some trail runs.

P.s. Lots of travel and finals are eating up my time, so the entries and reports are going to have to be much shorter than usual.