By far the best views of the 3 surf city challenge races. The only bad part of the race is the constant change in surfaces you run on. You get it all, you run on asphalt, cracked asphalt, cement, pavers and wood. But now that I got the bad done with, this race has the best views, as you run over the bridge to the Queen Mary, although I wish the course would take you slightly closer to the Queen Mary, a wrap around the Aquarium of the Pacific and the Pike. You get to run several miles down on the bike trails on the beach before heading back for the final stretch or split if you run the marathon. My kids loved the medal for the race and for me this was the completion of the surf city challenge (Surf City, OC and Long Beach) and received a special medal that was a blue whale, next years is a sea turtle, so will be back to run again and complete the race and get the new medal. I wish there were more vendors at the expo or had more local races to register or at least advertise for. All in all, I set a personal best for the year and looking forward to beating that time next year.

This was leg 2 of 3 for the Beach City Challenge. It's a great race for keeping the momentum of Surf City Half as it gives you a week of rest before you start the 12 week training program for this race. The annoying part for this race is that the race start and finish line are miles away from one another and you need to either be dropped off at Fashion Island or pay the parking fee and take a bus from the fair grounds so your car is at the finish line. The race was nice, pretty flat for the most part and has some nice random views, but most of the run is done in residential areas, but they are million dollar homes so can't be too mad about that. The hardest part of the run is near the 13 mile run when you are down to one lane and cars are being redirected from the freeway and are basically idling there and you get to breath in all the exhaust filth when you need your air the most. Still, its a relatively flat course that allows for one to push for a personal best time. I know I was able to shave off about 15 minutes from the Surf City Race, but I also changed my training to do so. As far as the rest of the race stuff, it's nice short sleeve shirt with a nice expo. A little bit chaotic since the kids races are there and there are school tents everywhere and chaos. You can save money by paying for the prepaid parking, I usually let the line dictate whether or not I'll do that. As a whole it is a great race and I'm set to do it again this year, but mainly because they changed the surf city challenge medal from a whale to a turtle.

I ran this in 2014 and in 2019 and not much has changed except for the awesome design of the shirts and slight change to the medals. This is a Great Super Bowl Sunday Run that isn't difficult at all. It has a later start compared to other races, 8 am, which is nice so you don't have to change any habits from a normal long run, if you run in the morning. There is a minor hill that starts at mile 2 as you begin a quick wrap around before headed back to PCH. It's a nice, all asphalt race for the half. Prefer it over the full, even though the full has a better view since they end up running on the concrete bike path down by the sand. This years race was one of the few bad weather days in so cal and at the turn around I got rained on for about 20 seconds, but it was just enough to get my clothes wet and heavy. I think the hardest part of this race, is the training schedule begins and runs right through the holidays and when the weather turns colder which makes it difficult to want to get motivated to run, but those are personal things that can be overcome. Parking isn't the greatest for this place as it is by the beach and PCH is closed for the race. But they have free parking where school buses pick you up every 5 minutes or so prior to the race if you park at one of the locations, but it does fill up quick. I'm looking forward to running this race every year moving forward as it is a simple run that isn't challenging outside of the distance you choose. The rest is on you.

So I have two different opinions of the race as I had two different experiences. I ran this race with my family and girl friend in 2011 and that is the race we will never forget and we still talk about. This was a race where about 30-50% of participants felt sick to their stomach, and the majority of them were the mid-pack to back of the pack runners. In my party, 3 of the 5 felt nauseous and/or threw up. The exit was poorly executed and we felt like cattle being herded through Mandalay Bay as it took nearly as long exiting the race/hotel as it did running the race. Mind you, that again, half the people were feeling nauseous or throwing up as well. In the end we vowed to never run the race again. After a report saying the water that was used (fire hydrants) it was said the levels were fine a few weeks later, but the issue was that they had the water in new trash cans and the water station volunteers were grabbing multiple cups and dipping them into the water with their hands and pulling them out which most likely was the root of the issue. As for the course it was great when you're running on the strip, however once you leave you're running by homeless people and dark areas of North Vegas isn't that fun. So out of the 5 of us, I took RNR Vegas for their word of they fixed the problem and took the discount to return to run it again. It had improved, they changed the location of the start and finish, expanding the run into Freemont Street where they had a nice surprise. I did my best to stay away from the water stations because I still didn't fully trust them, however they went to bottle waters for filling them instead of trash cans with hydrant water. The finish was moved from Mandalay Bay to the Mirage which is in the middle of the strip and no walking through the hotel to exit was way better. I haven't returned since the 2012 race, but it's mainly because I decided I don't want to spend the money for the race. I think every half-marathon runner should experience this race as it is fun and how often does the entire strip close down, even if it is a Sunday night in the dead of winter. I may get back there eventually to help settle the score between the good and bad experience. But 2012 still doesn't fix my outlook from the 2011 race as we call that the most poorly managed race in the history of races. But that is mine and the 26,000 of the 52,000 runners that year, if not more.