Monday, February 9, 2015

San Blas Half Marathon Coamo, Puerto Rico


The San Blas Half Marathon in Coamo, Puerto Rico is the race that would be held if there was a half marathon in hell.

Take the Boston Marathon.

Now cut out all flat parts until you have the hilliest half of the race left.

Now take that course and inflate the climbs and descents by 100%. The longest consecutive climb is 8k long and up to 15% steep. What goes up, must come down.

Take the hottest Boston Marathon in history and add 10F.

Make sure the humidity is above 90%.

Take all spectators at Boston and cram them into half the distance.

Now imagine the drunk college guys on the Boston course. 

Those are the 10 sober people at San Blas.

Take the loudest band or music along the course in Boston.

Double up their volume and spread it along the course.

Think about camping out the night before Boston Marathon to get a good viewing spot? In San Blas, you better be there Friday already.

That pretty much sums up the race. In short, we (my wife and I) had a blast despite being late for that start because we left late, had a vomiting son on the way to the race and the start being 30 mins. earlier than announced on the race registration website. To date I have not found a start time on the race website itself.


I ran 1:25, a whopping 11 min. above my PR but I’m happy. The elites were about 4 min. above their PR so 5-6min. is ok for me. 1:19/1:20 shape sounds about right. I’ll get that down to 1:18 by NYC Half. My injured right leg held up decently. It was definitely getting tighter towards the end but having to run so much downhill was quite the strain. 
 
ShareThis