So while I don’t follow any specific ruled group on how I do my races, my goal is any race … and after 2020 happened, and at least 5 half marathons I had went virtual or pushed off to another time, I created a rule that to count it, I had to actually run something in that state at some point to officially say I ran in that state. Even a 5k would work.

Here we are, first trip ever to California for our entire family. With my goal of running a race in all 50 states, I had planned a race in San Jose back in April 2020, however that became a virtual race due to… well you know.

That’s part 1.

Part 2 … last spring break we did a lot of traveling from place to place and stayed at most 2 nights in any given location. We decided that this year we’d use our bonus HGV points and just get a full week in at one location in California. So here we are.

Once we booked the dates Mon-Saturday before knowing our exact plans, searching for a 5k, we found the fastest 5k in the world, a race made popular by Meb, who has competed in the Olympics before. There were a total of 10 races happening that day, the 10th being the 20k that included running in the first 4 5ks of the day with a little break in between.

Since that race was in the little town we were staying in, we absolutely had to add 2 days to be able to run that race.

Getting there: Using points saved up with our Alaska Airlines card and American Airlines, we got all flights covered cost-free (except the $5.60 per flight per direction auto fee) Charlotte to San Diego.

Housing: Home 2 Suites in Carlsbad for 2 nights using Hilton Honors Points, ie no charge. (King bed + Sofa Bed for the boys and a mini kitchenette).

Grand Pacific Palisades by Hilton for 5 nights using HGV points, which once adding up fees to book and carry over points to 2023, probably cost $250-$300 max for the entire 5 nights. (2 bedrooms, balcony overlooking the Flower Fields and ocean, 2 bathrooms, Full Kitchen, lap pool, kid pool, 3 hot tubs, kids splash pad)

Driving around: We rented a car- ended up having to pay more than we expected because the car I booked was so small it didn’t have trunk space. So we had to level up. Cost was around $450 for a car for the week after taking all taxes,fees, and gas into account. We drove the little Kia Soul around and that was a pretty spiffy little car.

Food: We ate in as much as we could. Benefit of having a kitchen… with 2 teens that love to eat big, it was cheaper to hit up a grocery store and spend around $200 to cover breakfast, lunch, and dinners for most days/nights. We only ate out for 2 dinners and 2 lunches.

Go-City Pass All-Inclusive for San Diego was a big plus being first-timers to San Diego with so much to see. And it was so easy to use. All the places we visited knew how it worked and didn’t ask questions…just pulled out their scanners. What was nice was having 64 good options to choose from. A few required booking- but it was all what you wanted to do and stuff as many as you could into a day.

We opted for a 3 day one.

Day 1: San Diego Zoo ($69) + Birch Aquarium ($25)

Day 2: USS Midway ($31), Model Railway museum ($20), Fleet Science Center ($25)

Day 3: San Diego Wild Safari Park ($69) + LegoLand ($114-$119)

The cost for each person for the Go-City Card was approximately $190 after buying on Groupon and through my Capital One Venture shopping link that gave me another $57 back for a Groupon purchase.

That meant for all of those things (4 of which were already for sure on our list to do while in San Diego no matter what), we each saved $163 on activities using this card. We wanted to do at least one more museum on Day 2 but we did not have time.

In addition to the Go City Pass locations, we also visited the Cabrillo National Park Monument which was beautiful and well done. We also visited the San Elijo Nature preserve/Lagoon and hiked through the trails and Annie’s Canyon.

Our final day was spent swimming laps in the warm lap pool, hiking, walking the beach, ice cream sundaes, ping pong, drinks with friends at Karl Strauss.

Weather: We were told that San Diego is classically sunny, gets minimal rain, and rarely bad storms, and temps seem to stay in the 70s year round. However this year has been weird and they have had almost a month of rain and we came in to 60s temps all week with gorgeous sunshine.

Working out: Both hotels had functional gyms. We did weights, biking, running, and swimming over the week to get some workouts in.

I-5 is the main interstate linking San Diego to Carlsbad. It was a solid 30 minutes between our hotel and most outlying locations we traveled to, give or take some. There was a great website that you could check out that had all accidents in the area listed so that you could see where to avoid if it was possible to. However at 430-6pm was super busy on the interstate and would have backups for miles going into Carlsbad. GPS ushered us off the interstate early often to help us avoid a lot of that.

Race Day:

Well I was disappointed we didn’t get to the race venue on Saturday for packet pick up because they gave the first 500 people to get their packets free Knockaround Sunglasses. We didn’t even get to San Diego until after Packet Pickup had completed for Saturday.

Sunday morning we were up and there by 6am to get our packets, shirts, and goodies. There were lots of vendors and freebies being given out. Because we were running the 20k, we had a ‘Recovery Zone’ that we were privy to… we had our own gear check, granola bars, gatorades, waters, a hat, sunscreen (we’re set for sunscreen for 2023), and it was also where we got our medals after completing the race. There were tables with umbrellas and chairs scatttered over the asphalt parking lot and closed in with a guard standing to check bibs that only 20k’ers were allowed in. We had to keep approving Daniel to come in because, well, we couldn’t quite leave our 15 year old outside the area…lol. There was also a space to roll out quads, etc.

Race 1 with the Master’s Men was to start at 6:55am. We all rolled up… cool outside… waited on the train to pass, then started by 7:01am. For me it was my fastest 5k. As we were in the first 10th of a mile I looked over an said hey to Meb while he stood there watching us all go. A girl I was sharing our recovery zone table with ended up beside me at some point in the race and we got to chatting a little as we finished. As you cross the finish line, we were not to take a medal. Instead water, banana, granola bar. We had a solid 30 minutes til the next race. We all kinda mingled and weren’t sure what to do with ourselves to keep from getting tight and being ready for race 2.

8am started race 2 with Master’s Women came next. Ian has decided this is his goal pace race. So he gets up closer to the front. We start moving and man my legs are trying to figure out why I’m running … again. Conrad catches up to me and picks on me for being further up in the corral than him (I couldn’t find anyone). At about the 3/4 mile mark my new friend Amanda rolls up behind us and we finish out this race together, talking up a bit more this go around. Ian is able to PR 2 minutes on this race! After this race they are giving out the chocolate milks at the finish. Yes please! I drink half of one on my way back, this time the race took a little longer to complete… 3 extra minutes, however that meant less recovery time between races. I drank half a Gatorade and half a chewy granola bar. Rolled out my quads and hamstrings… thinking this will help get through race 3.

9am starts race 3 with 39 and under Women. These girls are decked out in full on race gear with intentions of getting some PRs. I’m already thinking… I haven’t run over 6 miles in a while so this is gonna be interesting. With a little more walking during this race in added a couple minutes time in. My friend Amanda had gotten ahead of me, but I finally was able to catch up to her by just past halfway. We finished yet again while she told me all about what to do in San Diego. She beat me into the finish line. I stopped for some coffee on the way back, entered a drawing for a prize at a table and a protein bar, and we all dragged ourselves back up to go do this one more time. After each race we were dropping a little more clothes, adding sunglasses, hats, sunscreen…

10:10am starts race 4 with the 39 and under men. How do we make this race #4? These guys are gonna be the fastest group…lol. Daniel is also in this race. I was gonna run with him. Daniel had no training but said, eh, I figure I can run 3 miles. We must make it look easy.

Not far into the race Daniel is taking off faster than me and I can’t keep up anymore. My legs are asking for breaks more often at this point. And at about the same point as last race, I catch Amanda again. So we motivate each other. And we get to the the last half mile and I take off, yelling at her to keep up (more a motivating joke because I already was running like a slug). We got to the end and she was not much further behind. Another chocolate milk, granola bar, water… group photo… we’re done! And Daniel did great!

We slowly collected our stuff from the Recovery Zone. Hydrated, ate snacks, got our medals (we got 1 20k and 1 5k race medal each). Took our stuff to the car …slowly. Followed by lunch downtown Carlsbad and watching the Elite runners. I love to watch runners. Such a beautiful sport! The remainder of the day was spent lying around in our hotel room.

On to our next adventure!