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<\/a><\/p>\nI was however a fan of the organization.\u00a0 Michelle and Mark are the operators and they have a “usual suspects” gallery of volunteers, supporters, and photographers that help make the thing feel like a family.\u00a0 It’s a low-frills event on open courses, usually on shared bike paths at area parks or in today’s case along the Santa Monica Boardwalk.<\/p>\n
For the Summer Sensation Event, they were offering various distances, the longest being a Half Marathon.\u00a0 I don’t know if they’ve stopped doing 26.2 mile events or if it’s just too darn hot to be out running that distance.\u00a0 Nonetheless, I thought it would be fun to go and run along the beach and revisit that course that waylaid me 12 some months ago.<\/p>\n It was great to see Michelle again and she recognized me as I walked up to pick up my bib.\u00a0 In fact, she surprised me by giving me souvenir swag of A Better World Running shirt, hoodie, and compression sleeves.\u00a0 It was quite a thing and a reminder of how nice these folks are, especially to us “out-of-towner” runners!<\/p>\n The course itself for the half marathon was three extended loops out from the Santa Monica Pier to the Montana Trail turnaround and back.\u00a0 Morning mist\/haze hung in the sky along the shoreline so it was pleasantly overcast for a run.\u00a0 This was also the first event that I was using my new to me but used Garmin Vivoactive GPS watch.\u00a0 As I mentioned yesterday, I’m still working out the kinks of the thing.\u00a0 To my great joy however, outside with a clear view of the sky it picked up a GPS signal within moments of powering on, a marked improvement from my previous, bare-bones Garmin watch.<\/p>\n I’m not sure if I’m using it wrong or if some setting is screwy but I had a hard time feeling\/hearing the loop BEEP that happens at each mile.\u00a0 I stared at the screen as I got closer and closer to a mile marker and it did BEEP and notify me on the screen so maybe I mucked up the notification length this morning as I was pushing buttons.\u00a0 It didn’t seem to keep a pretty accurate mileage count if A Better World Running’s markers were any indication.\u00a0 Like many a “smart” fitness tracker a la FitBit or Nike Fuel, the Vivoactive has a “walking goal” thing that I can’t figure out how to reset.\u00a0 Right now it’s set for a perfectly reasonable number of daily steps for normal activity… but when covering 13.1 miles at a clip, I kept getting notifications that I had reached “2x goal!” or “3x goal!” levels.\u00a0 I get the “game”-ification of exercise and I strongly support anything that gets people excited about getting up off the couch and going outside and moving about.\u00a0 But I need to figure out how to shut off the step counter or alter the parameters of the notifications.\u00a0 THOSE beeps and vibrations I felt… I just wish I could tell when I clicked past a mile… ya know when there aren’t race placards along the way telling me what mile I’m at.\u00a0 Because of the open loop nature of the course, there wasn’t signage of that ilk… but sometimes that’s better too.\u00a0 It made today’s distance then be “three loops” instead of “13.1 miles” and psychologically sometimes that’s a nice thing — just keep pounding the pavement or in this case Boardwalk until you loop back, forgetting about “miles” or “kilometers” and instead just counting down from 3…2…1…FINISH.<\/p>\n A nice little moment along the course had a woman on a bike come up from behind me, ring her bell to let me know she was passing on the left, and as she did so she asked me, “Are you Kevin?”\u00a0 I was rocking my Club 7+7<4 shirt that features the website logo on the back and when I said I was indeed Kevin, the woman cheered, “Run Kevin Run!”\u00a0 I think the branding is really starting to take hold!<\/p>\n Two quick shots from along the course:<\/p>\n I’d say it took me two loops before I realized this place was actually called “Back on the Beach Cafe” and NOT “Back On Cafe: The Beach!” as if there were several locations for “Back On Cafes” and this one just happened to be at The Beach.\u00a0 I blame terrible logo layout… and the fact that I’m still a little jetlagged.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a>\u00a0 <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n