Inaugural Hollywood Half Marathon Recap

I signed up for the Inaugural Hollywood Half Marathon in hopes of achieving a 2:00:00 PR because it HAD TO BE a faster course than Agoura Hills and 6 minutes isn't THAT much, right? Wrong!! 

My friend, Brian,  and I at race packet pickup

Being a newbie to the half marathon scene, I thought it would be an easily attainable goal. I failed to look at the elevation profile for the course and although I enjoyed a PR, I thought I could shave a hefty 6 minutes off my time. The course was alot more challenging than I expected and although I banked some minutes in the early part of the race, I peetered out a bit when I hit the long, gradual hills along  Highland Ave and Cahuenga Blvd. Every street seems flatter in the car! How did I not notice these hills before when I've lived in LA my whole life?? My motivation for powering up the Cahuenga hill was not finishing behind a guy wearing tight, onesie pajamas with spacemen on them who was wearing a helmet.

Isn't that a gorgeous medal?

The course was an out and back which I didn't care for too much and there wasn't a whole lot of crowd support. The volunteers were friendly but at one point they ran out of cups for water at the aid stations so I cupped my hands and a volunteer poured it for me. No biggie. I didn't let it ruin my run. 

PR happiness

After the race I found my friend, Brian, and a couple of coworkers who also ran the race and grabbed an iced tea from Starbucks at CityWalk which was packed! We got out of there before it got too hot and had no traffic getting back to the freeway. It was a fun, high energy race with lots of costumed runners, but the course itself wasn't much to look at. Mentally, the out and back course kept me wondering how much further I had to go before I reached the turn around point which wasn't fun.

I didn't hit my 2:00:00 PR but I did finish in 2:04:38 which meant it was a new PR and only my second half ever!