Race Information

• Name: Mountains 2 Beach Marathon
• Date: April 19, 2026
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Ventura Beach, CA
• Website: https://www.mountains2beachmarathon.com/
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/18175022089
• Time: 3:20:55

Background

• 27F
• Former college athlete (cheerleader), picked up running recreationally 4 years ago and have done marathons on and off. This was the 5th marathon I've trained for seriously, my debut was a 3:57 at Grandma's 2022.

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	Sub 3:20	No
B	Sub 3:25	Yes
C	PR (Sub 3:36)	Yes

Splits

Mile	Time
1	7:48
2	7:58
3	7:58
4	7:32
5	7:30
6	7:33
7	7:51
8	7:37
9	7:55
10	7:27
11	7:25
12	7:30
13	7:32
14	7:37
15	7:40
16	7:27
17	7:30
18	7:33
19	7:35
20	7:42
21	7:37
22	7:30
23	7:39
24	7:48
25	7:40
26	7:28
0.2	6:45

Training

I've had mixed results following more "serious" plans, so this year I kinda just vibed with my friend who had a solid half marathon / marathon plan built out, tweaked the mileage to be more reasonable for my lifestyle (peaked just over 60 mpw), and took her long run workouts. Each week I completed one hefty tempo workout mid-week, one "medium" long run (easy), and one long run with a workout. We started with a half marathon build from Dec -> end of January, raced the F3 half in Chicago, took a week to recover, then jumped into the marathon build. I really liked this approach and the speed it allowed me to build in the first part of the block.

Race

Pretty much a textbook race! The weather was cool low-50s to start up in Ojai, we caught the 5am shuttle up from downtown Ventura and hit the portas before race started at 6:10. The bathroom line was surprisingly slow and I didn't end up getting into the corral until about 6:05 - I never really end up doing a great "warmup" before marathons, so this didn't phase me too much.

I started very conservatively and wanted to keep my HR sub-170s as much as possible for the first half. After training through the Chicago winter, the southern California sun definitely impacted my body more than it should so I decided not to worry as much about my HR jumping up and focused more on feel. I dumped water on myself at every aid station and made sure to keep hydrated throughout.

Basically no notes up until mile 16- I felt great, hit my gels every 4 miles like clockwork, took the subtle uphills strong and took advantage of the downhill sections whenever they hit. Since I was still feeling good at 16, I decided it was safe to shift gears a bit, as I knew I'd have to start negative splitting to hit my A/B goals. I was still feeling really strong up through 22. I told myself I wasn't allowed to start hurting until 24, so I got myself there. The final 2 miles had a gradual uphill (no more downhill to take advantage of) and had very little shade compared to the earlier sections of the course - temp had also risen to mid 60's by this point. I knew I had to just grit it out and held on as much as I could, and kicked the hell out of the final stretch.

Post-race

Pretty much immediately after finishing, I grabbed a medal, hunched over the metal guardrails, and lost every gel and sip of water I had managed throughout the race. This has never happened to me after a run so I was as shocked as anyone, the medical staff was very kind and offered to give me a seat but I immediately felt so much better! I had very little nausea throughout the race as well, but I think the heat must've gotten to me more than I realized (HR hit 186 through the final kick).

As much as I'm stoked about a 15-minute PR from a 4-month training block (last PR was 3:36 at Chicago 2025), I can't stop thinking how, with Boston's cutoff last year at 3:30:26, I may be just a hair too slow which is devastating. I'm still considering a last chance race, but probably not worth it since I'm already planning to run Chicago this fall. Open to any tweaks that can help cut that next 5-10min to get me to Boston with confidence!

Made with a new race report generator created by u/herumph.