In January we gave 5 Advantage members FREE event registrations and campground reservations for an entire year. Richard was one of our lucky winners and has already participated in 6 events for free. Here is an update from his experience at the Diamond Valley Lake Marathon.

I finished up the Diamond Valley Lake Marathon this past Saturday with a time of 4:46:41. The view was beautiful but the heat was brutal! The late start time, 8am, definitely had an impact on the whole field and by the later miles the aid stations began running out of water because everyone was taking so much to try and rehydrate.

I felt really good during this race for the first 15 miles or so and actually set a personal best for a half during a marathon with a half split of 1:52. Around Mile 15 or 16 though I hit a patch of straight gravel that I was not prepared to handle in my vibrams and had to walk to mile 17. After that it was pretty rough to start up again but I found some young kids who were struggling too and motivating them to finish helped get me to run again. We ran from mile 20 until mile 25 doing 1/1 run/walk intervals and they told me afterward that they were able to PR because of that.

I would definitely do this race again because it went to such a good cause. Quite a few of the aid stations were run by people who have had homes built for them by Habitat for Humanity and if that doesn't inspire you to keep running I don't know what will.