Maria Montes's Staging Area

The course is beautiful and the race had only 2,000 marathon runners so it has a nice mellow feel. Lots of dedicated student volunteers work the expo and the course since the race benefits Ventura public schools. It was an easy drive from the Bay Area down 101 — the only traffic was in Santa Barbara.

My number one takeaway is that the the net downhill does not feel like much of a downhill, and there are uphills too.

Apparently the race usually sells out months before, but I was able to register in late April. I had myself on the waitlist but then found someone willing to directly transfer his registration to me on the Facebook event page. The transfer was so easy: I sent him my email address and M2B sent me a link to register. When I did, they issued my transferor a refund.

Since I registered so late, finding a hotel was a little problematic. We ended up staying at a motel about 3 miles away from the expo/start that normally might cost less than $100 but for our one night it was $323 (including tax and fees). Ugh!

In terms of logistics, I was on a 5am shuttle and arrived at the start about 5:40 because we didn’t leave downtown Ventura until about 5:08. There were tons of portapotties at the start but with very long lines to use them so a lot of people were feeling a little rushed. This didn’t bug me because I’m used to being late.

I ran with a pacer for the first half and planned to push the second half, but I was so hungry, tired, and thirsty by mile 14, I actually fell back. My first half was 10 minutes faster than my second, which seems to be the way a lot of people ended up running this race, too. The aid stations were well stocked and volunteers were nice about letting me have more water, etc.

The crowd for the marathon was hardcore. Lots of BQ’s! I’m not even close but I did get a huge PR.

The best part of the race is the beach finish. I wish I had put flip-flops in a gear bag because I dunked my legs in the ocean right after and had to put my running shoes back on to get to the car.

I paid for my medal to be engraved online with my registration, but forgot to get that done at the finish so I’m going to email the race directors to see if they can help me with that. I also bought the pasta dinner with registration and that worked out well — we picked up our bibs, ate, and turned in for the night.

Overall, this was an extremely gratifying and pleasant race!

I’ve done the half twice and the 5K twice. The course is gorgeous with cooler temps, technical trails, and a lot of #elevert. Just about everyone I know has fallen at least once on the half course (including me). There are a lot of hidden roots and rocks in addition to the twigs, pine cones, and other debris on those trails.

Brazen does an amazing job on all its races, and this one is no exception. Aid stations are well-stocked and the race directors are positive and supportive of all runners. The little owl mascot of SR is my favorite logo, and the town of Saratoga is sweet place to have a snack after the race.

The 6-hour race is a great way to get a long run in for marathon training without much time pressure.

You get a very cool sweatshirt if you do either the 6- or 12-hour race, and you can get your medal engraved for free at the end. The deal is you run a 3.4 mile loop over and over again until the last hour when they open a little loop of 0.6 miles. One big loop is all you need for an official finish though, so you needn’t run the whole time at all. There’s a yummy BBQ that starts about 11am — that it a natural break point for me. This year, I did the 5K as well as the 6-hour for extra bling, and I even got an age group medal in the 5K. The Poop-Heart mascot of the 5K/10K is one of my Brazen favorites, second only to the adorable Summit Rock owl.

So pack a bag with extra running shoes and socks, towels, picnic baskets, maybe a tent and whatever else you need to run and/or hangout all day, and join the party.

Having bag check was great because I wore my long down coat until just before the race. We had parked up the hill and walked into the park where it was even colder. The 10K is out and back, and there is a steep climb mile 2 to 3.