Encinitas Half Marathon – A Family Affair

The Encinitas Half Marathon is a killer run through every borough of Encinitas.  You get a taste of Leucadia, Encinitas Proper and finally Cardiff by the Sea on your way back to the finish line.  Since this is my home town, it was fun to run up through all the shops in Leucadia.  I didn’t realize half of them were there!  And, running down the coast through Cardiff is always a pleasure.

Aunt Stacey came to visit us and run the race.  So, my wife Amy, her sister (Aunt Stacey) and myself all ran.  I believe this is the third half marathon that Amy has run with me.  The other two were Orange County and Monterey.  Pretty cool!

The Race

We completely lucked out finding a parking spot and we got to the race with just enough time to pee and get in the pack.  Some races loop the route so you run past other runners who are behind you in the race.  During this race we got to do it twice.  Why is this fun?  Well, because I was watching closely, I got to see Amy and Stacey both times we looped and ran back the other way.  Around mile 7 one of the vendors was handing out small berry banana smoothies and because I’m a good member of the family, I made sure to inform them so they would stop and grab one.

They had some killer swag at the race finish.  The finish area was complete with big cups of oatmeal, coffee, bars, bananas and other stuff. Killer way to finish the race.  Because I was quite a bit ahead of the gals, I grabbed my stuff and started walking back up the race route.  Around mile 12, there is a big hill right next to Swami’s.  Thats’ were I waited until I saw both girls.  I followed them up the hill to provide a little extra motivation.  At the finish, the girls grabbed some grub and we all headed home.

Getting “The Call”

On the way home Amy and Stacey both got a call from my mother-in-law.  She had just had a surgery a couple days before and had to be re-admitted to the hospital.  The afternoon was intended to be a bit of a relaxing celebration but instead, it turned into a stressful occasion.  Amy decided to fly back to Phoenix with Stacey and within 90 minutes post race, had packed a bag and was heading to the airport.

The good news is everything turned out okay.  But, at the time, it was a post race celebration worth forgetting.