Mopsothoth: Catalina Island Marathon Report

I love trail runs and most of this race is all on dirt roads / trails. The family had also never been to Catalina and it sounded like fun for everyone!

I got my neighbor pal interested and he's not one to pass up a challenge like this. Next thing we know we were locked in and headed to Catalina, this would also be his first marathon, fun!

My parents who were at my first marathon, decide to join us, so it sounds like we are starting a little tradition here.

Training for this race went pretty well, I did some great training runs with some of our R.U.T.E. team, and then did my 18 and 20 milers by myself all in the mountains of Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez - some beautiful tranquil, runs exploring the backcountry. My wife and family were so great and supportive to let me do these long runs during precious our weekend time. As the runs got longer I pushed to get up and out earlier so as not to use up the entire day!

The trip to Catalina was fun, we took the ferry over to the island. Of course the kids loved the ferry, running all over the place. We got the 'mind the gap' speech from the Captain when the kids got too close to the gap between the massive ship and the dock, yikes! Once under way the rolling ship was great fun for the kids to bounce around like pinballs as they ran up and down the aisles. It was a little hazy so we didn't see the island until we got right up to Avalon, where we'd be staying, also the finish line for the race.

We checked into the Pavilion Lodge (great location across from the beach , near everything and nice rooms). We wandered around town the cool quaint little harbor town. After checking out the little beach and pier, we jumped into golf carts and toured around, of course the big kids loved riding up front like adults in these little putt-putt golf carts. We saw the 25 mile marker for the race on the road up to the hills, I thought then that we'd be happy to see that sometime the next day!

The Race
The race is a point to point race from Two Harbors to Avalon, 26.2 miles, 4000' of climbs and descent. I was looking at my hill training runs and the race course averages and I set myself a goal of 5:15 for the course. My last 20 mile training run, with 4000' climb, took me 4:43, but was at a more leisurely pace (13:46) and I thought I could do a better pace on race day.

My friend and I took a ferry to Two Harbors at 5:00AM, with kisses to the sleepy families before we left. We headed out with a boat full of excited runners and arrived in darkness.It was so dark I no idea where we were, where the start line was, even what general direction we were going to run in, spooooky! We did some wandering around at the start (crossing the island between the harbors twice looking for the bag drop off) and we saw the walkers / early starters head out at 6:30AM in the dim light of dawn. At the last second I decided to keep my iPhone on the race to take pictures and not put it in the drop bag. I like taking pix during my long training runs, but in that case I'm wearing a Camel Back pack which I can stuff it in. Here I was putting it in the mp3 pocket of my shorts. Always a good idea to try something new on race day! In my last marathon, I put so much crud in my shorts, they actually fell down while I was running! My pal laughed at me when I declared it felt OK after test running with the iPhone in my shorts for 50ft. Sure, it's OK for 50ft, but how about for 26.2! Hmm, we'll find out. We said if it started to bug me, I'd erase the data and throw the damn thing away at an aid station!

We lined up with around 600 other runners at 7am and with little preamble heard the horn and we were off.

The course doesn't mess around it immediately starts climbing from Two Harbors up into the hills. The first mile felt good running in the pack, getting warmed up. Typically in a race my partner would pull away from me in the first mile and I'd see him at the finish, but this time he held back and ran with me the entire race. It was really cool to run together for the whole 26.2. We talked and joked around while we ran at the start of the race devolving into grunts and short grim jokes toward the end of the race.

The race flowed from one hill to another with great wide dirt roads. The weather was great, a little cool, perfect for running. The view from the tops of the ridges were huge and sweeping out to the ocean, little harbors and beaches and nice valleys in the interior of the island. I took some pictures as we ran, stopping to fool around with the iPhone camera a few times along the way. Let's just say the iPhone camera is lacking when it comes to anything close to action shots, so I got plenty of pix that were distorted like fun house mirrors, and a few good ones on the run. I need to find a good small 'running' camera. In the end it didn't pull my shorts down and I didn't have to toss it. Here's a couple shots of us on the run, when we were both fairly fresh.

The first 10 miles were good, the pack stayed fairly tight, there were some hills which folks walked early on and we ran, so we started to spread out a little bit. On we went up to the ridges then down to valleys and harbors, it all felt nice and remote. At one camping spot, there was a bit of shouting and as we came up, we saw a few guys hanging out by a cooler w/ two full beers on top. They were encouraging runners to stop and kill a beer and continue on. One guy in front of us just finished one, but it felt a little early in the race to pound one down! A little bit after we passed, I heard another cheer, so I guess at least one more runner got a carbo boost from Bud!

At around mile 11 it started to get a little hard for me, just hit a stage with lower energy, nothing was really sore or hurt it was starting to feel like real effort. Thinking about the miles (and hills) ahead was a little daunting. The views helped and thinking of the family at the finish line made me run on. Eating my e-gels, sports beans and drinking water kept me going. The aid stations in the race were really great. There were lots of people staffing the stations, they came at just the right times, my pal went for the M&Ms. The stations had plenty of water, Gatorade and even Hammer gels. While runners probably do not need to bring water bottles or 'fuel' to run in the race, but I like having the water bottle and gels for a new race where I don't where all the stops are.

My pal kept pace with me throughout the race, until the end of the run, when we started hitting more hills. On my typical long run, I run up into the mountains and the second half of of the run is mostly down hill. Not so in this race, the longest climbs are toward the end, with one nice bit of downhill at the very end. The folks in our pace group started to the walk the hills and after a bit I realized they were walking as fast (or faster ) than I was 'running', so I fell into pace and power walked also. My buddy had the energy and power to run the last hills, so he'd pull ahead and was kind enough to wait at the top for me to catch him, so we could start running together again. It was cool for him to do that this time, but I expect he'll blaze ahead and do a nice PR if we do this race again!

We finally topped out at the microwave tower overlooking the town of Avalon and the finish line. It looked like we had a ways to go, but not too bad. Of course the race course didn't go towards Avalon, but in a little case of cruelty it both went away from it and into another series of up and down hills. At this point we started checking the time and I thought if I held pace I'd hit my sub 5:15 goal. We talked a little bit of sub 5:00, but anything below 5:15 without injury sounded good to me and I pushed hard for that. I told my pal to go ahead if he wanted to hit the sub 5:00, but he said not to worry about it, we'd finish together, nice.

We hit the last 3 miles headed down hill (it drops around 1600') and I took the lead setting a decent pace without tripping over rocks or careening off the trail. On the steep we had to govern our speed a little bit, we saw one of the youngsters trying to fly down the trail. Some of the old hands laughed a little at that, saying that he was going to flame out later. We did pass the youngin before the finish as he leaned over punching his legs trying to work out some cramps, but in the end he finished just a few minutes behind us, so it wasn't too bad.

The dirt roads gave way to the streets of Avalon and it was good to see the 25 mile marker we saw the day before. We picked up the pace, wanting to finish strong. We saw another runner stopping to stretch, I think the last big of downhill does something to you, she was doing a stretch we knew well. I said 'Oh, hello IT band!' to my pal and we both laughed, it seemed funny at the time...

Towards the end, I wasn't even really checking the time or looking for the clock, I was happy to be finishing strong. I even forgot to check for that last second 'pass' from another runner coming from behind, luckily we had pushed it enough in our run down the block, that no one was in place to do that.

We did a couple turns and then we saw a longish stretch and the actual finish line, what a great sight! We pushed it to the line, finishing together side by side with our kids running up to us as we finished, I saw my wife as I ran in, big smiles on both our faces. Hugs and congrats all around. The family took pictures at the end. Big kisses with the wife! We got our medals and stood around in a nice happy daze. My final time was 5:01:20 (11:29/mile). With the help of my pal, I crushed my 5:15 goal and I have a nice sub 5:00 target for next time. I think my buddy is going to target sub 4:30 next time, which I think he can do handily.

We did a little dip in the ocean to cool off our legs, nice ice bath temperature, it was cold, but I think my legs appreciated it. Of course the kids actually swam around in the chilly water, total polar bears.

After some nice hot showers at the hotel we wandered around town, seeing runners still coming in (7+ hours out on the course, wow, that's hard too!) We had a great meal (Ribeye steak, yum) at Steve's Steakhouse with a nice view of the harbor. We wore our medals around town like running geeks, luckily there were plenty just like us. There were even folks with these pins and bars for each year they had run the Catalina Marathon which made us look very understated in our celebratory fashion by comparison. Some had 26+ bars for running this marathon 26+ times! We were not too sure about the 'look' of these bars draping off their hats like metallic braids, but I'm sure we'll figure out the best way to wear them if we start accumulating more finishes! For now we each have a pin and one bar, it's a beginning.

We stayed in town for more one night, played mini-golf, did the undersea tour and the awesome Casino tour the next day, jumped on the ferry with the kids and grandparents and headed home. All in all a great race and trip which might become a tradition, even the kids want to race. The wives of course ran post race day, training for the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon, which we are all going to run together.

Woof woof!