February 3 - February 9 Weekly mileage:
2/3 Sun- Sunday - Surf City Half Marathon Huntington Beach 1:44
2/4 Mon -cross train
2/5 Tue -7.25 miles easy
2/6 Wed- travel day Aloha!
2/7 Thur - tempo run 7.5 miles
2/8 Fri - cross train
2/9 Sat -long run 10.25 miles

Sunday - Surf City Marathon - formerly known as the Pacific Shoreline Marathon
Rain and Wind was in the forecast, but we were hopefully optimistic that the storm would blow over quickly or dissipate before the gun went off today. No such luck! The starting line was a sea of rain ponchos, makeshift glad bag coats, and "Runners Wraps". Christy and I were lucky enough to be neighbors of the Runners Wrap booth and took this great new running product for a test drive on Sunday. They are a lot like an oversized white doctors' coat made out of a weightless polypropylene gauzy fabric, complete with a snapping front closure. They actually kept us warmer and were very resistant to the downpour of rain. Not only do these little garments help with those pre-race shivers, the owners of the company place collection bins along the marathon course and donate them to homeless shelters post marathon. How cool is that?!

The marathon course was nice and flat and ran along the pacific coast. It seemed like it would be the perfect scenic and easy course for a p.r.....on a nice typical sunny day in the OC. As we toed the line, and went over our race plan (the plan was that there wouldn't be any plan in this awful weather). Our only goal today was to cross that finish line and get the cool little surf board medal......and keep our borrowed hats (thanks annie) from flying far far away. We cruised the course at a relaxed page and picked up the pace on the last half. Aside from the sideways wind and rain coming off the coast, we had a blast splish splashing our way through Huntington Beach. If you can believe it, this was the first time Christy has ever run in the rain (she's spoiled with San Diego weather). AND SHE DIDN'T MELT! I am thrilled to report that I am feeling my old running stride coming back (thanks to the training/therapy of Chris! - see CHEK blog from last week.) - no more quad pain! I still have some work to do on getting my body back to pre-pregnancy posture and gait, but It is so much better already.

All in all I give this half marathon my vote of approval and plan to do it again next year!