San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon: 2010
June 14th, 2010, 12:26am by Jake
Or as I titled it on Runner’s World forums, the good, bad & ugly of the new SD RnR Marathon course. First, I’ll get it out of the way: I was way off my predicted time, finishing 15 minutes slow in 4:25. Ooph. Knew it was gonna be tough by mile 3. The hard marathon I ran 3 weeks earlier certainly didn’t help, and probably hurt. My 9th time running the original Rock ‘n Roll Marathon, this would rank as one of the lesser performances. For the first time, there was also a half marathon. Huge mistake in my book, as the marathon was a massive success with upwards of 15,000 finishers most years. This year, with more folks attracted to the half, the event sold out for the first time, and the number of marathon finishers reached an all-time low of 10,000. The finish area moved from the grassy areas of MCRD to the Sea World Parking Lot. And the event lost some charm for me as a result. And that was before I got started.
As can be expected, dragged a camera out, this time the new Pentax K-x w/ the 50mm f/1.4. For an inexpensive camera, five hundredish bucks, it takes great low light photos and the f/1.4 lets in a lot of light. Here’s another shot at 5 AM.
Now, as for the event itself: better than I expected, not as good as I hoped. Lemme explain.
The good: Well, the start area was more sane than I expected, as long as you were happy with the naturally provided porta-potties. Ditto the Expo, provided you went late Saturday. Little hint: NEVER go the the Expo around noon on Saturday. Total disaster. The first 8 or so miles of the course were great, running through Balboa Park for the first time was fun. The downtoop loop was improved, and the halfathoners blended in just fine. Finish area seemed good, I just kinda wandered off. Skipped all the official transport, so I’ll let others rate that.
The bad: The merge of the half & full at mile 9 was a mess, with absolutely nothing preventing the merge. Really annoying for everyone, as the walkers were going much slower than the jogging marathoners in the 4:15 crowd. Also, the hello-goodbye-hello-goodbye split & merge were annoying. In RnR’s defense, once we went from the 163 to Friar’s Road the events were separated.
The ugly: I ran RnR #2, when there was effectively no crowd support. By RnR #5 or 6, it really became a community event, especially running through the neighborhoods on PB. But also downtown, Friar’s Road and even Pacific Highway headed to the finish. Well, now the last 10 miles were run with effectively zero crowd support, as there was little access for supporters to reach that part of the course. Scenic, sure, but I didn’t need 3 miles running on concrete paths in Mission Bay park. Even worse was the 5 long miles on Fiesta Island. For being right on the water, it’s shockingly unscenic, and even less crowd support than in MBP. The last 3/4 mile was OK, I suppose, but really that bit on Fiesta Island sucked the wind out of a lot of people’s sails. I hope RnR Inc. does what it takes to return the course to it’s traditional loop of Mission Bay. I’d gladly add a few hills in exchange for thousands of fans.
Overall, the first half of the course gets an A- (for the awkward merge), and the second half gets a C-. Add the Mission Bay loop back, and I’ll be back for sure.
Also, 4 marathons in 5 months is far too many. Wasn’t really my plan, just the way it worked out. Happy to take 6-8 months away from marathons. Sad part is, I gained 5 pounds with all that pavement pounding. Here’s a photo from me on the course— I can only guess that I saw the camera here and put my game face on.
June 14th, 2010 at 1:23 am
Nice report! Do you actually know those guys from the Runners World forums? It’s a crazy amount of mileage you are putting on those wheels of yours.
June 14th, 2010 at 1:44 am
I’ve met 3 of the yellow shirt people at a variety of races: Las Vegas, Carlsbad, Palos Verdes, San Diego. I’m an amateur compared to them, who typically run 2 or more marathons each month. Just silly!
June 14th, 2010 at 5:54 am
I don’t remember much about Fiesta Island, other than it’s a mound of sand where I ran a race once, but otherwise, only visited for the Over The Line tournament. It’s the opposite of scenic (eyesore?), and if I remember correctly, there’s only one road onto the island, so nobody would want to get stuck in traffic driving there, hence the lack of crowd.
Sucks that you run ~20% of the marathon there now!
June 14th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
I think I ran the same race! Might still have the t-shirt, even. Mound of sand is about it. There’s one road, and it’s one way. Very easy to close to traffic (duh), but really sad since part of the fun of running a marathon is running routes that are often off-limits or impractical.
Really, I feel obligated to run #10 there at some point, but I won’t run next year if it’s on the same course. The real solution to the voluntary mess is run the RnR Half the night before along Mission Bay on the bike paths + Fiesta Island, then have the marathon loop the bay as it did traditionally and avoid the half marathon messes. I give that about a 5% chance of happening.