Since the Santa Barbara Marathon was during our stay here we had to sign up and give it a try. Unfortunately that meant getting up at 5.30 a.m. to catch the shuttle bus to the start line leaving at UCSB. It was incredibly cold, but I arrived at the start unfrozen.

Fortunately at the start the sun started to rise. The start was pretty quick and I thought about which pacer to follow (each pacer had a finish time and guides others by running exactly the speed required to reach the finish line at the set time). I thought 3:45 might be a realistic time, but it just felt too slow, so I ended up sticking with the 3:25 pacer until about 25 kilometers. The route was pretty nice and there were a lot of people cheering, holding up signs or just watching. The sports enthusiasm over here is still unbeatable.

When I felt my power fading I slowed down a bit, but soon felt myself being chased by the 3:30 group, so I joined them. Unfortunately at kilometer 32 my muscles had enough and turned into concrete. From that point on it was really painful, but somehow I still managed to arrive at 3:42:06 (11.4 km/h). The finish was decorated for Veteran’s day – huge American flags for the last mile and veterans at the finish line.

Luckily the supply of free food and drinks was really good. During the run I had kept looking for real food like bananas, so I was happy to get some at the finish line, finally.

In the bus back to UCSB I met a just retired American from Fresno, who had already completed more than 100 marathons, at least one in each state of the U.S. with a record time of 2:47. Way to go