Mountains 2 Beach Marathon Recap

The Mountains 2 Beach Marathon was pretty much everything I hoped it would be. The name alone sounds dope AF, making me feel like I was about to go on one hell of a 26-mile adventure! I signed up for Mountains 2 Beach at the end of 2018 at the suggestion of my coach. On my mission to run a marathon in every state, Mountains 2 Beach was not my first pick for California. In fact, I had my eyes on another marathon that is known to be full of spectacular views – The Big Sur. I’m sure the Big Sur is a spectacular race, but my soul is quite happy that my 26.2-miles through California were spent running from Ojai to Ventura.

The Decision

After the Chicago Marathon (RECAP in Marathon Expectations) my heart was quite broken. My initial post-Chicago reaction was to sign up for a revenge race, but I wasn’t ready to jump back in for another marathon; and wouldn’t be for several months following the race. During my downtime, my coach and I weighed out my potential options. She didn’t recommend I jump back into marathon training for a few months.

From there, our game plan was to train for a Spring half-marathon to work on speed before transitioning into marathon training mode again for a May Marathon. Mountains 2 Beach was perfectly situated in late May, giving me time to prep for a March half-marathon, the Zydeco Half, and still have time to start ramping up mileage to prep for the marathon.

Mountains 2 Beach Training

Life was ridiculously busy with work, parenting, and graduate school that I barely had time to breathe let alone have a strong training cycle.

When I decided on my Spring half & full marathon goals, my heart wasn’t all in. More so, I didn’t really have the time for it! Life was ridiculously busy with work, parenting, and graduate school that I barely had time to breathe let alone have a strong training cycle. In comparison to prep for the Chicago Marathon when I was running 100+ miles a month, my highest mileage prepping for Mountains 2 Beach was only 98 miles in April. From October through January, I never ran over 40 miles!

Strength Training

Even though my mileage wasn’t where I wanted to be for consistent training, I did get back in the habit of strength training. Around Thanksgiving my personal trainer and friend, Loraine and I sat down and hashed out a plan to get stronger – together! About halfway through my training for Chicago I slacked off from my workout regimen. Moving forward, I made the commitment to get back to working out twice a week with Loraine.

Posterior Tibial Tendonitis

I ran the Zydeco Half Marathon in March. It was a great PR race, but slightly after the race my ankle and inner calf started having some pain and discomfort during my workouts. Around the same time, I was breaking in a new pair of shoes. I originally thought the new shoes were causing some discomfort. After a few weeks of it getting worse, I finally caved and went to see my Chiropractor at Source Chiropractic, Dr. Dave!

I was primarily having issues with my calf on stop and go movements. While I was running, so long as I kept going, my ankle and calf felt perfectly fine. On the other hand, whenever I would stop, I would immediately have shooting pains up my inner calf and would have trouble getting back going. This made it really hard to stop for breaks, grab water, or even do any type of speed or threshold workout that called for intervals of running/walking/recovery.

Nonetheless, Dr. Dave gave me the green light to keep training, and I would see him pretty regularly through race day. Although he told me I could keep training, I stopped doing any type of run/walk interval workouts. I traded out all of my interval workouts for easy runs, and to be honest, I was skipping some runs as well. As I previously mentioned, my heart and energy were touch and go on this training cycle. With my work/life load, if running needed to take the backseat, I let it! Hence the low mileage months in comparison to the past.

Mountains 2 Beach Experience

I prefer to be in the comfort of home – able to rest, cook my own meals, and not feel confined to a room!

I flew into L.A. the Thursday before the race to get settled in with my group of friends that were also running the half-marathon that weekend. We booked a beautiful, inexpensive condo through AirBnb that was not too far from the beach. When I am traveling for races, I prefer to be in the comfort of home – able to rest, cook my own meals, and not feel confined to a room! Traveling with friends makes these races so much more enjoyable, and we also get to save money by all staying together!

• 

• 

• 

Since we got there a couple of days before the race, we had time to grocery shop, do a bit of exploring, scout out the race route, spend time at the beach, and go on a couple of shake-out runs. Ventura is beautiful, the weather was perfect, and we had so a great time before race day even came! We explored Santa Monica on the drive in Friday, drove up to Ojai after a run along the beach on Friday, and on Saturday we joined the Mountains 2 Beach ambassadors for a shake-out run before hitting up the expo.

• 

• 

• 

Mountains 2 Beach Expo

The expo was rather small with only a couple dozen vendors. The packet pick-up was a quick in and out experience. Overall, only 1723 runners participated in the marathon. Race weekend also hosted half-marathon and 5k courses. I was able to pick-up my bib, t-shirt, finishers jacket, and a couple packs of Honey Stinger chews within 15 minutes.

• 

• 

• 

Race Day

I’d love to tell you that I was calm and ready on race morning, but that would be a front. While I went into race day with minimal expectations (check out my Marathon Expectations post), I still was so nervous all morning. I was so worried that I would have a similar experience as I did in Chicago. If you don’t know, I got terribly sick around the half-way point of the Chicago Marathon and had the worst race; I hash all of that out in the Marathon Expectations post. I just couldn’t shake the worry that I might have a similar experience.

When I woke up that morning, my stomach was in knots, and it stayed that way all the way until I got into my starting coral! I had plenty of thoughts that morning of just going back to bed and saying to hell with it all lol! But I pushed forward.

Pre-Race Fuel

The entire week leading into the marathon I was adjusting my diet to make sure I was eating good, carb loading, and staying hydrated. I was trying to drink plenty of water with Nuun Electrolytes, adding a little extra salt to my meals, and making sure to throw in carbs at every meal. Traveling can really throw my eating patterns off, I have to very intentional to eat healthy and not fall into a travel junk food funk. This is another reason why it’s really important for me to be able to prep my own meals!

• 

• 

• 

For breakfast I had a bagel with Cocoa Hazelnut Spread, water with Nuun Electrolyes, and planned to have a banana on the way to the start. I left my banana at home on the counter-top and ended up only eating half of my bagel. My complete lack of appetite had me worried even more. I ate really good, full meals the day before the race, I think this contributed to my lack of appetite.

Race Fueling Plan

For this race, I used Maurten 360 drink mix and gels. I made the decision to start using Maurten about a month prior to the race. In the past I have used Nuun performance powder, nuun electrolytes, honey stinger chews and Gu Roctane gels. All of these things were overwhelming my gut. The Maurten 360 drink mix can be used before, during, or after a workout, and is good for about two hours’ worth of exercise. I use the drink mix before my runs.

Around 5am, while waiting at the start I planned to drink the drink mix to give it time to digest. I’m a big fan of the concept behind Maurten and how it works in your stomach to provide carbohydrates, you should check out their website for the details. Where I tend to need a Gel every 4ish miles, once I drink the drink mix, I only need them every 6-7 miles (or less)!

• 

• 

Hydration Plan

I wore my Nathan Sports Vapor Howe 4L vest for the race. If you know me, you know I love my Nathan’s vest when I am running. It has two 20oz bottles and pockets on pockets for all of my goodies. My bottles had 1 ½ Nuun tablets in each bottle, I had a pack of honey stinger chews, 4 maurten gels, and a baggie with extra nuun and salt tabs. My goal was to use one bottle per half in addition to water on the course. I took 2 salt tabs every 4.5 miles or so, and on the back end of the course I took 3.

Shuttle

Shuttles takes runners from Downtown Ventura to the starting point in the mountains, Ojai California. Shuttle options start from 4-5am. You pick your shuttle options when you register for the race and they give you a ticket at packet pick-up. Unfortunately, my shuttle left at 4am and the race didn’t start until 6, so I had plenty of time to sit with my nerves and thoughts at the start! The full and half marathons start at different points as well, so I was without my crew in the morning.

The Pace Plan

My coach and I spent time on Saturday afternoon hashing out my plan for the race. We felt I had the potential to be somewhere close to 4:10, but didn’t know for sure with the rolling hills throughout the race (especially since I train on flat terrain in New Orleans) and my calf issues. The morning of, I just kept going over that plan again and again waiting for the race to start. Mel suggested a conservative pace plan, and she also suggested some dynamic warm-ups to get my ankle ready to roll.

I planned to pace at 9:45 for the first 10k and ease into a 9:30-9:40 pace for miles 7-13. The first 6 miles were up hill and we didn’t want to push too hard here and burn out early. I planned to pick up the pace for miles 14-20 by easing into a 9:15-9:20 pace. For the last 10k, the goal was to PUSH as hard as I could to the finish without worrying about the pace!

Miles 0-6

I started the race next to the 4:10 pacers. They would be maintaining a 9:20 pace for the race so my goal was to stay tucked behind them and try and keep them in my sights. Since I planned to start my first 10k at a 9:45 or slower pace, I didn’t want to get caught up running my race with them. Luckily, one thing that I am good at is running my own race and not getting swept up running too fast. Miles 1-6 were 9:34, 9:48, 9:35, 9:21, 9:18, and 9:23. While most of these were faster than my goal of 9:45, This pace felt good as a warm-up so I stuck with it. The first three miles were more uphill while miles 4-6 were downhill and it was hard on my knees to try and slow the effort; so I just rolled with it.

Orange Groves

The views started immediately. As soon as we turned the corner into the second mile, we began running along a ranch that had rows upon rows of orange trees. It was beautiful, and it was peaceful. It was a very serene feeling, and all of my nerves just went away. I was smiling, and in this moment, I felt like this was going to be a great race.

Running Buddy

I don’t know who he was, I didn’t get his name, but there was a guy that pretty much ran the entire race next to me. We would get away from each other every so often but somehow kept catching up with each other. There definitely was a level of comfort every time I saw him!

Miles 7-13

Since I run in Louisiana, I go through A LOT of water while I am training; and I always manage to run out and feel dehydrated. I think this gives me a fear on race day that I need to drink tons of water while I am running. I do not know how you all run without your own water source. Teach me! Somehow I managed to go through my first bottle somewhere close to mile 10!

Because I was guzzling down all of the water I came across, I also had to pee pretty bad by mile 8. I told myself to hold it as long as I could because I was worried how my calf would react to stopping.

For this stretch my pace goal was to sit comfortably between 9:30 and 9:40. My times were 9:36, 9:27, 9:29, 9:24, 9:39, 9:24, and 9:14. These miles felt great. I was still really comfortable. I remember thinking to myself that if this had only been a half, I definitely could have PRd it! Around mile 12 we had the best downhill view, I couldn’t help but take my phone out and capture it while continuing to trek along.

• 

• 

All in all, the views were spectacular. I did not take my phone out to capture any other photos, but there were plenty mountain-side views, beautiful fields, and tons of small towns that we ran in and out of. The hills were there, but I felt stronger on them than some of the flatter portions. I really felt like my strength training was paying off. I could feel the different muscles activate on the hills and I could hear Loraine telling me to tackle them!

Miles 14-19

By this stretch, I really had to pee. I could just see myself being one of those runners that accidentally peed on herself lol. I just kept telling myself to make it to the next mile, the next port-o-potty and then I could stop. My legs were also starting to feel the hills, and then we rounded the corner into the 15^th mile and came across what felt and looked like a monster of a hill! I can just remember seeing it coming up and thinking to myself “fuck my life”. While it wasn’t incredibly steep, it was a long hill. Nevertheless, I tucked my head and pushed.

By now, I had found myself caught up with the 4:10 pacers and felt really great about it. When mile 16 came I finally stopped and used the port-o-potty, boy did I have to pee! Luckily, stopping did not disturb my calf and the quick stop refreshed my legs a bit!

My goal pace during this stretch was 9:15-9:20. This was expected to be a push considering where I was in the race. My legs were tired and I definitely was struggling to stay in the zone. Mentally, I was still in a great place; I usually start questioning my existence around mile 18. My times were 9:23, 9:47(hill), 9:26, 10:07 (restroom break), 9:48, and 9:36. I also had barely any water left toward the end of this stretch and the course water stations were pretty spread out.

20 – FINISH LINE

During this stretch I was finally out of the mountains and heading into Ventura. Unfortunately, with the mountains left the nice views. This portion of the race takes you through some back service road / industrial area; water was scarce. When I would come to a hydration station I would try to grab a two cups of water. Unfortunately, they were only half filled and weren’t helping much since they were so spread out.

Sometime around mile 18, I felt like I had a second wind coming. I was managing to keep the pace below 10 minutes even though my legs were definitely heavy. Coach told me to race this stretch of the course without looking at my watch; just run it hard. My times were 9:43, 9:16, 9:33, 10:01, 10:30, 10:43, and 11:13.

Around mile 20 I caught up with my running buddy from earlier in the race. He was stretching and I shouted out to him that we only had a 10k left. Around mile 23 I ran into another woman that I had met the day before. I slowed up just so lightly to check-in with her and I could feel the need for water. From here on it was all about survival. I wanted to stay within 10 minutes if I could, but I was depleted.

There were a couple longer hills to finish off the race. I knew the day was going to be a PR day, I just wanted to hold on to have a 4:15 or less finish time. I managed to cross the finish line in 4:15:56 with a 15-minute PR from Chicago and a 19-minute PR from the Flying Pig last May.

Mountains 2 Beach Finish Line

Here I was, two years, later, on hilly terrain with an hour shaved off of my time.

My friends were all at the finish line waiting on me after their half-marathons. I sat down and immediately started crying, they were definitely happy tears. My first marathon in 2017 was a disaster, poorly trained, 5:12 finish that I had to run walk the last 10k. Here I was, two years, later, on hilly terrain with an hour shaved off of my time. I was really proud of myself.

I couldn’t have asked for a better race day given my lack of motivation to properly train, my ankle/calf issues, and flat New Orleans training. The weather was a perfect high 50s low 60s with an overcast. It lightly rained a couple of times during the race. And even though there were barely any spectators on the course, the views were spectacular.

• 

• 

• 

What’s Next?

I was able to enjoy the rest of my vacation time in Ventura and get some rest in. Up next is my return to Chicago! Loraine and I threw our names into the Chicago raffle again to get some redemption. I am hoping to learn from my lessons and have a better race day. Training plans haven’t been set yet. I haven’t run a single mile since race day. I’ll likely go out for some easy fun miles this week (the week after the race).

For the time being, I have no desire to run with any type of training in mind; give me a few weeks and I’ll be ready to train. Summer is here in New Orleans and its hotter than hot already! Time to get rejoin the sports bra squad and get my hydration ready! Thank you to everyone that followed along on my Mountains 2 Beach journey. Here’s to another hot ass summer training!