Packet pick-up was yesterday at a Sports Authority near the race. There was no expo.
The race started near the Camarillo Airport and covered two loops on the map shown below. With the exception of the small bit right by the airport, the course was through farmland - lots of strawberries and tilled earth. The course was very flat with the exception of a small hill around Mile 6 (Mile 19 on Lap 2). The course was very well marked and had great police support at all intersections. Additionally, EMS was very visible with several personnel cruising around the course on bikes.
Aid stations were at all the marked locations and many had Gu in addition to drinks. All stations had water but not all had Gatorade. There was a port-o-potty at all the aid stations.
The finishers medals were nice and the marathon finishers specifically said "marathon" instead of including all distances into one and also had the year on them.
I got a free entry to this race 15 days ago and as such did zero spin-up for this race from a training standpoint. With that in mind, my goal was simply to finish another marathon and I took my boys with me and turned this trip into a "brocation" with beach time to finish off their Winter Break from school. I took the race pretty easy pace wise and finished in a predictably slow 4:57:29 (still, it was a minute faster than my first marathon at Death Valley) which had me 80th out of 113 finishers and near the end of my age group. It was nice having the route keep passing the start area multiple times because that meant that I got to see a lot of my cheering section but mentally, I do not like passing the finishing line multiple times in a race.
Next up - The Road Rage Duathlon on Feb 28th,
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| Pre-race in the chute |
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| Post race with another finisher's medal |
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