39.3 Miles in 3 hours and 34 minutes

I'm just starting to recover from my long Sunday that had me doing 39.3 in the Long Beach Marathon and I completed 2 events in 3 hours and 34 minutes.

BIKE TOUR - 26.2 miles in 1:19
I started the morning with the 6AM bike tour of the course. There were a lot more cyclists than I was expecting. That's good because its always nice to see people exercising, on the other hand, it makes for crowded conditions and I don't necessarily enjoy riding like that. I managed to get to the front of the pack at the start line, so that avoided me having to jostle too much at the start.

The course itself was very nice for runner, but not ideal for a cyclist. It had a bit too many twisty turns and turnarounds that don't make for fast times. At one point, I was nearing a tranisition point between a bike path and the road and a police office simply yelled out "Curb!" and I had no idea whether I was going to go down a curb or hit one! Fortunately, he was wrong and there was no curb, just a small incline (like a handicap ramp). Once on the main parts of the street, the course had a couple of false-flats, so I had to shift properly and maintain a nice cadence. My main concern overall was to maintain energy for the half-marathon, so I did manage to draft off a few riders. I rode behind one guy for more than 5 miles, so I managed to soft-pedal while maintaining close to 19MPH.

The only eventful part of the ride was that I almost crashed right around mile 21. I was taking a drink and then made a mistake while putting my bottle back in the cage. For a brief second, my bottle was stuck in between my pedal and my crankset. I managed to power through it and had the bottle stuck on my top ring and it actually chewed through and ripped up the bottle. I had Pedialyte sprayed all over the legs and shoes, but I avoided crashing. It was a scary moment and since I only had one bottle with me, I had to forgo drinking for the rest of the ride.

After finishing and collecting my medal, I quickly made my way to the car to get ready for the half-marathon. Some cyclists were looking at my like I was crazy when they saw me putting my bike away and pinning a running number on my jersey at the same time. They were all done and going to breakfast while my day was just beginning.

HALF-MARATHON - 13.1 miles in 2:15
I had made arrangements to meet a friend at the 13.1 mile marker of the marathon course. So, I had a legitimate bib number and everything was above-board, I just did my own version of 13.1 miles. Getting to the 13.1 marker was surprisingly easy; I took a cab from the starting line and he got me as close as possible. I only had to walk about 1 mile and could easily spot the 13.1 marker by the timing mat there.

The pace started off relatively quick, but I settled into it right away. The initial miles were through a park and some residential areas, so that made for some good sightseeing. We hit some hills and overpasses the definitely tested my already-warm quads, but I felt pretty good on them. I kept on reminding myself to pump my arms and that helped with the overall cadence and pace.

As with the Nike run, one of my saving graces was running through a college campus. There's something about the energy of a campus that really gets me moving. So, when the run passed the Cal State Long Beach campus, there were many students cheering and I felt like I caught a second-wind and it came at just the right time.

Once the run left the campus, that's basically the turning point from where the course heads back to the finish area. Needless to say, these are also the hardest miles. I had felt pretty strong throughout and was running fairly consistent mile splits, but getting to mile 12 and mile 13 was extremely difficult. These miles represented the furthest that I have ever run in my life and part of me was in disbelief while the rest of me was just plain tired. I'm pretty sure that during my trek to mile 12, I slowed down to a very slow pace - I was still running, but someone could have followed me with a brisk walk pace. Getting to 13 was hard, but helped by the fact that I knew that it would be over soon. There were many, many people walking at this point, but I just kept on going because I knew that I was on a good pace.

I almost couldn't believe it when I crossed the line in 2:15! I have never run that far for that distance before and I was really proud of myself. Surprisingly, I felt OK at the end. I needed the mylar blanket to keep me from shivering, but otherwise, I was good. My quads hurt a little and I felt like my feet had swollen, but nothing out of the ordinary after running for more than 2 hours. Considering that I did the bike tour in the morning and had an earlier start that I would have otherwise, I think that a goal of a sub-2 hour half marathon is very possible.

Overall, a wonderful day! I felt strong on both the bike and the run and I enjoyed the race events. This make me even more excited about my upcoming half-marathon races!