Inaugural Hooley to Hooley's Half Marathon Race Recap

I ran the first ever Hooley to Hooley's Half Marathon today. My time wasn't spectacular and I didn't set a PR but I had a good time overall.

Trying to keep it all together.

Click Through for the rest of the Recap

The Expo

Well there wasn't an expo persay, but there was a packet pick up at Sports Authority the day before. I didn't mind it as I tend to get kind of claustrophobic at the big ones anyway. There was also a 15% off coupon for purchases made at Sports Authority which I promptly used to buy myself a new race outfit.

Notice the 15% coupon dangling out of the center runners hand.

The Start

They started LATE. This route had a lot of road crossings and they had to get police permission to begin. I guess they had a hard time securing the route so we began 20 minutes late.

It was St Patrick's day so they had someone sing the American National Anthem in a cockamamie Irish Accent. I don't want to be too judgmental about that, but it made me a feel a bit uneasy.

Notice the mountains in the background.

From my end.

I started out feeling good.

The Course

My Garmin gave me a neat little elevation map and course layout. You can also see my consistent 10:34 pace if that interests you. The peaks corresponding to the high paces are when I stopped at water stations. Water stations were ample and there were many that I passed up.

As you can see, there is a 300 foot incline initially, a ~200ft decline to the switchback observers area so you feel nice and fresh when you see your friends and family, and a nice decline into the finish.

It went from Rancho San Diego Mall through downtown El Cajon and back. I was lead to believe that this race would be "point to point" which to me means that you take a different route back. That was not the case.

El Cajon is one of the many suburbs of San Diego that get a downtown sign.

There were so many street crossings and no roads that were fully closed down for our race. The volunteering police officers did a great job of holding up traffic for runners. I don't think I actually came to a stop once at a street crossing to wait for a car. There was much dissent from the drivers though. At one point a car plowed through the intersection right in front of me. The police officer was pounding on his windows and chased after him so fast that he managed to pull over a car on foot. Meanwhile I shed a tear because I saw my life pass before my eyes.

The Race advertised "split times". To me that means there is a sign that tells you how long the race has been going at each mile. There were guys holding stop watches yelling out the relevant info at each mile. I found that a nice alternative. I was listening to music and had my watch so I didn't make much of the data. To some people, that is important data. I mean, otherwise, we might as well be running around the block.

The Support

There was a Bag pipe band in the beginning, a set of lovely Irish Dancers around mile four and another band at the turnaround. They were taking quite a few breaks so the only entertainment I was able to appreciate were the dancers. They had capes. I was enchanted.

There were also volunteers sparsely dispersed that clapped for us in encouragement. I was happy they were there. There wasn't much of a crowd by way of non associated spectators though. By seeing the look of the held up drivers in their cars, I'd actually say this community wasn't much to welcome of a half marathon.

The Finish

There were gratis orange and banana halves as well as powerbars and water bottles. There was a band playing. They had a beer garden where they had Irish tacos, but I didn't have any. 10:30am is too early to start drinking for me, especially when I am fighting blood sugar crashes throughout the race.

There was a very talented and interesting band at the afterparty.

There was a costume contest as well. I only stuck around to a see a few minutes of it, but it was a little bit awful. They kept on hurrying everyone and there wasn't enough of a crowd to really judge by crowd approval. We all just ran a race, now we want to take things slow.

The results are posted here
The professional race photos will be posted here.

Tips

The event started at a shopping center next to a movie theater and a grocery store. We weren't supposed to park there but did anyway because Alex was going to move the car to meet me at the half way point. If you are going by yourself, you should just park at Cuyamaca Community college so you don't have to worry about about KFC towing you.
Watch out for your poor ankles. We only had access to the very side of the road and those mofos are crowned. I saw one elite runner who was limping so bad at mile 9 that I thought "I would have stopped if I were him."
Bring $10 in cash so you can get a massage at the end.
You can listen to your music on this course
This is a FAST course. I felt like there was a bit of public ridicule for someone finishing in greater than 2:40. Not that I wouldn't run it if I didn't plan to finish in 2:40, but I'd bring along my thick skin.
Keep an ongoing awareness about oncoming traffic regardless of the dedicated volunteer group. There is a danger of being hit.
I registered about 5 days before the race and my number was 485. The website said there were going to be a thousand runners. I don't think you are going to have to worry about this race selling out.