Mountains 2 Beach

Mountains 2 Beach

Mountains 2 Beach

( 13 reviews )
84% of reviewers recommend this race
  • Ojai,
    California,
    United States
  • May
  • 13.1 miles/Half Marathon, 26.2 miles/Marathon
  • Road Race
  • Event Website

Jenny

San Diego, California, United States
36 10
2015
"M2B Marathon - For the Speedy"
Overall
T-Shirts/SWAG
Aid Stations
Course Scenery
Expo Quality
Elevation Difficulty
Parking/Access
Race Management
Jenny 's thoughts:

My friends have all run this race multiple times and so we signed up way in advance to run. This race will sell out and it sells out early.

As a Boston Qualifying race, it's definitely geared towards the speedy. If you are a mid to back of packer like I was, it can get a little lonely out there.

First off, communication from the race was excellent. They sent multiple emails out in the month prior to the race with all the details you would need.

There was an opportunity to pick up your bib the week prior to the race as well as the day before. We were coming from San Diego, a 3.5 hr drive, so we waited until Saturday to pick ours up. The expo was open from 2 - 7pm at Ventura High School. To say it was chaotic is an understatement. Hundreds of runners waiting to pick up their bibs in a very small space. I was not impressed.

There are 3 different race distances offered, 5k, 1/2 marathon & marathon For the 1/2 & full marathons there were 3 lines for people to stand in, but it was very confusing as to which line to get into. If you were really fast, numbers 1 - 600 your line was really short, the other numbers had much longer lines. I'm grateful for volunteers, but I don't feel like they were trained properly on how to give out the bibs. There were just random stacks of bibs spread out on a table. They couldn't even find my bib for almost 5-7 minutes. Most races have them in boxes, bins with the numbers separated that way - this was completely disorganized.

There was a booth on the other side with race shirts and other packet items like KT Tape, chocolate biPro and some pamplets. There were some vendors, Clif, Fluid & Lorna Jane for example but I was a little annoyed about the disorganization so I didn't really pay close attention.

One of the unique things about this race is that if you aren't able to run, you can transfer your registration to another runner and if you don't pick up your bib at the expo when it's finished they will sell the bibs to other runners for 1 hour. So if you don't get in you still might have a chance at the last minute.

Race morning parking - the race sent out a lot of information on where to park. Ventura offers a lot of street parking, which is free until 10am and other public parking which is free all day. We didn't have any issues with finding parking.

We walked from parking to the shuttle buses, about 4-5 blocks. The shuttles, school buses, were set up very well. They had buses to both the start lines of the marathon & half marathon and they were consistently running. The official times for the shuttles were 4am & 5am but we got there at 4:40am and were able to immediately get on the bus. One note on the shuttle, they had all the windows cracked and it was cold!! I'd recommend bringing throw away clothes to keep warm before the race starts.

Once arriving at the start there were lots of port-a-potties, gear check (I'm not positive on where it was, but they didn't give out bags at the expo so you'd want to check on what kind of bags you can have with them directly).

There were supposed to be corrals, they had us separated by color, but for some reason we all started at the same time.

The course starts in Ojai and then is a mostly downhill course on a bike path down to the beach in Ventura, there is a bit of an uphill between miles 5 - 7, but it's not much. It really is a beautiful course, with views of the mountains and then running on the bike path near the ocean.

This was my 6th marathon and the smallest one I've ever done, around 1,500 marathoners. I'm used to having a lot of spectators so this was a lot different for me. Also, because most everyone is gunning for a BQ even though there is a 6 hour time limit, it spreads out quickly. I was nursing an injury to my hamstring, so my time was a lot slower than I would have liked. I met a lot of really cool people in the last stretch but it's definitely a lot different than the big races I've done before.

The finish is on the boardwalk in Ventura Beach, past the pier and the Crowne Plaza. It was a nice finish with an awesome finish line festival. The medal was awesome, big & heavy.

The food options they gave though were paltry, a bottle of water and a small container with some watermelon, a tiny slicy of banana, some cookies and m&m's. Compared to other races, it wasn't great. There were however a lot of food trucks available to purchase food.

They had a massage tent, one of the perks of being at the back of the pack was that I got right in to get a massage and it was at least 15 minutes long. AWESOME!!

Another perk are the free race photos available after the race.

All in all, even though this was not by best personal race, I would recommend this race to anyone, especially if you are looking to BQ &/or PR.

You can read my full recap on my blog at http://runny-legs.com/2015/05/mountains-2-beach-marathon-race-recap/.

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