San Diego Mardi Gras 15k Race Recap

When I started working at Pepperdine, I found out that one of my coworkers in the library also began running recently and had actually done one of the same races that I had recently. She and I quickly bonded over running and decided that we'd love to do a race together (although we were also in agreement that that did not mean that we would actually run at the same pace).

As luck would have it, we found a race that was Mardi Gras themed (Kim hails from New Orleans) and it was a distance that neither of us had done before, a 15k (hello, automatic PR!). The race was in San Diego, so we decided to make a weekend of it!

We took Amtrak from Union Station in LA down to the Old Town San Diego station. From there, we had a pretty short (but also kind of sketchy) walk to the hotel that Kim had booked with travel points (yay free room!). The hotel was perfect and we relaxed for a bit before taking a Lyft down to the Gaslamp Quarter for dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory. OSF is my favorite restaurant and there isn't one in LA so when I saw that there was one in San Diego (plus, we needed to carbo-load, obviously) I jumped at the chance. I got my tried-and-true, Tortellini, or "little green hats" as I called them as a tiny child. Yum!

My Old Spaghetti Factory favorite- Tortellini!

After we were thoroughly stuffed, we caught a Lyft back to our hotel and called it an early night.

The race was at Hospitality Point in San Diego, and it turned out to be a pretty cool place to run. The weather was just about perfect. Cool and a little foggy, but it warmed up a bit during the race. The 15k runners started first and made our way up the bike path, over the bridge, and continued along the San Diego River. My plan for the race was pretty simple: Redeem myself for my disappointing marathon time. I wanted to stick as close to 10 minute miles as possible, finish in under 1:35, and keep my times pretty consistent throughout. I was cautious not to go out too fast, because the last thing that I wanted to do was bonk in the last two miles.

Kim and I before the race

Luckily, my body was cooperating that day, and I felt mentally and physically strong. I saw Kim around each of the turn-arounds, and we high-fived before focusing back on our pace. The mile splits that I did catch on my watch were pretty consistently in the 9:35-9:45 range, and I knew that not only was I going to finish in under 1:35, but I could finish in 1:30 if I pushed myself through the last two miles. As I approached the finish line and could see the clock ticking through 1:29, I picked up the pace and crossed the finish at 1:29:48. Woo-hoo!

Right before the finish, realizing that I was going to CRUSH my goal!

As I caught my breath and waited for Kim to finish, I chatted with a few other runners, including a couple that complimented my skirt! Kim finished strong, also beating her goal time, and we wandered around while we recovered. When we headed to the board to check the official results, I saw that the person who came in second place in my age group had only finished 20 seconds ahead of me, and the third place spot was still empty. After an agonizing few minutes of waiting for the updates results, I found out that I came in 3rd in my age group! I've never placed in a race before and was thrilled!

3rd Place in my age group!

I don't know that I would travel to San Diego for the same race again, but it was a fun and well-constructed race. It was a fairly flat course, and other than a swarm of little bugs flying into my face at one point, overall fairly pleasant. My only complaints about this race are the same as the other Wiz Events race that I did last summer. There are NO porta potties on the race course. When you've hydrated well and it's a cool day, sometimes you need to go. On the upside of this, I didn't stop at all, which led to a much better time than if I had had the opportunity for a bathroom break. There were also very few water stations, and I was thankful that it was so cool outside. Post-race refreshments were great, with bagels and peanut butter along with the usual bananas. They also had a New Orleans style food truck, but we didn't partake. Overall, it was a great race day and I came out of it proud of how I did and with a renewed faith in my abilities.

The fun hat and medals that we got at the race, along with may embellished Sparkle Athletic skirt