Guus Bosman

On Sunday August 17 we got up at 4.30 am to prepare for our race in San Diego, America's Finest City 2008. It was a beautiful course, the nicest I've ran so far, and Sasha and I were quite successful with personal records for both of us.

On Friday night we walked the last few miles of the half marathon course, pretty much all of it uphill in the beautiful but hilly downtown area. It was good I knew that this was coming at the end of the race; I was mentally prepared and in my calculations I allowed for some extra walk breaks near the end. The over-all result was 2:18, a couple of minutes faster than my previous two races.

A lot of people asked: "isn't it terribly hot in San Diego?" but the weather was great for running. It was sunny, but not humid at all and very bearable. When we returned back in North Carolina 10 days later it took us a while to get used to the warm and humid weather again.

Buses took us from Balboa park to the start of the half marathon. Early in the morning, watching the sunrise at the Cabrillo National Monument

There were more than 7,500 participants.

I dropped my bag with warm clothes at the start and they were at the finish when I arrived. I was glad I had some warm clothes with me; it was windy at the start, although not really cold.

After the national anthem, the race started. At the start there was music: "California Dreaming". I really liked running a race in California.

The first mile or so was downhill, through the military area around the Cabrillo monument.

After that, it was about 8 miles flat, along the Embarcadero with a great view of the San Diego skyline. We took this picture when we went to pick up our bib's on Saturday.

Downtown was uphill, and the finish was in Balbao Park where we had taken the bus early in the morning. The picture above doesn't show it well, but that's where the incline began (it would get a lot worse a mile in). We took this picture earlier in the week.

Our shoes together. Instead of chips the race used disposable RFID tags.

After our races!