Josiah Hoi's Blog

Race Information

• Name: Carlsbad Half-Marathon
• Date: 19 January 2025
• Distance: Half-Marathon
• Location: Carlsbad Half-Marathon
• Website: https://inmotionevents.com/event/carlsbad-marathon/
• Strava: https://strava.app.link/lubCV7THoQb
• Time: 1:38:11

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	1:40	Yes
B	1:44	Yes
C	PB	Yes

Splits

Mile	Time
1	7:32
2	7:16
3	7:21
4	7:15
5	7:31
6	7:16
7	7:36
8	7:28
9	7:23
10	7:31
11	7:40
12	7:36
13	7:26
13.1	7:05

Training

After the Long Beach Marathon, I really wanted to run another long-ish race to take advantage of training in cooler weather. However, I wasn’t super down to do all those 20+ mile long runs for marathon training again, so I wanted to race the half-marathon distance. The last time I raced a half-marathon was back in February of 2020, where I blew up after starting way too hot and finished around 2:10. I ended up settling on the Carlsbad Half-Marathon because it’s relatively close to me, and I had heard that the swag was good.

I approached this training block (roughly 10 weeks) a little bit differently than my Long Beach Marathon. I tried to spend more time doing zone 2 training, with 1-2 speed sessions per week and a long-ish run. My long runs were shorter than my marathon training long runs (peak was 15 miles), but my weekly average volume went up. I spent two weeks running 50 miles/week, which was a new peak for me. Overall, I felt that my fitness substantially improved – my zone 2 pace averages dropped to about 9:00/mile. I was routinely setting new PBs at various distances in training runs – 5K, 10K, and half-marathons.

The only hiccup in these runs came in the last two weeks – I had two workouts that went poorly, which I attributed to a combination of dehydration, fasting, and heat. These workouts shook my confidence, so I downgraded my expectations coming into the race.

Pre-race

The day of the race, I woke up around 4 AM and had my usual pre-race breakfast of PB&J and some 85C bread. I also drank a coffee and pooped twice before heading out the door around 5:30.

The drive to the race was very smooth and uneventful. There was no traffic at all, and parking was a breeze. I parked a little bit further out than most people, so that I could get out easier at the end.

My warmup mostly consisted of jogging to the bib pick-up booth and the portapotties and back. I got to chat with Tim & Roy a little bit, and then I got to lining up. To my surprise, they had assigned me to start in the fastest wave.

Race

I was pleasantly surprised when they started counting down to the 6:45 start on time. I had become accustomed to start line delays – both Long Beach and the OC Turkey Trot were delayed. I quickly lined up behind the 1:40 pacers, and we started almost exactly on time.

My race strategy was to stick to the 1:40 pacers and just see if I could hang on. I was having doubts about whether I could actually run 1:40, but I figured I had to at least try and start on-pace. If I started too slow, I would never be able to catch back up. The 1:40 pacers started off really hot, almost 1:35 pace. I was really surprised by their quick pace, but I figured they knew what they were doing and I just stuck with them. I kept an eye on the pace, but I resolved not to check my heart rate (which was a good thing, because it turns out my heart rate was in the 180s-190s for most of the race, and I probably would’ve freaked out and slowed down if I actually saw it). The hills did slow us down a little bit, but by the time we hit the halfway turnaround, I was feeling pretty good, so I surged on ahead.

Somewhere between miles 9 and 10, I could feel myself starting to get tired. My legs were starting to go numb. I knew I had a couple of minutes banked and I could slow down, but I managed to hang in there. The hardest miles were miles 11-13, where there was almost no crowd support. I took an extra gel here more for the mental motivation aspect. I also lost my water bottle here (I finished it around mile 10 and had tucked it into my belt, but then it fell out when I fumbled to grab my last gel). Otherwise, my memory from miles 10-13 are a bit hazy, as I was focusing all my energy on running. I saw Veronica and Amos in the finish chute and blew some kisses on the finishing sprint.

Post-race

The finish line festival was a little bit of a letdown. There weren’t a whole lot of interesting booths (except a Yakult booth), so we left pretty soon afterwards. I was also really surprised to see that there wasn’t no traffic on the way out (around 10 AM). Veronica, Amos, and I ate brunch at Chaupain Bakery in San Clemente, which wasn’t all that great because they spent 15 minutes heating up my quiche before serving it to me cold.

Overall, I was super happy with the race. I wasn’t sure I would be able to even run a 1:40, and I smashed my goal by a whole two minutes. With a little more endurance training, a 3:30 marathon is definitely possible. I’m eyeing the OC Marathon and CIM right now, but I haven’t made any final decisions yet.