In this first‑person race vlog of the 37th California International Marathon, the narrator walks viewers through his pre‑race mindset, training background, and the decision to race by heart‑rate and feel rather than a strict time goal. He recounts the start, early pacing, and how unexpected high humidity raised his heart rate, prompting gear adjustments and strategic hydration choices. Throughout the race he interacts with fellow runners—including a brief invitation to Juliana for a podcast—and highlights the supportive online running community. The narrator reflects on finishing in 3:02, noting it was slower than his 2:44 Boston PR but still a personal achievement given the conditions, and emphasizes that finishing time is just a number, encouraging listeners to focus on effort and community support for future attempts.
Chapters
Hi guys! How's it looking? Wow, it's amazing! Oh, here we go. Let's go grab the shuttle. Wow, that's a lot of people ready to go run. And have a great run. In the home of the brave. We're now 30 seconds away. You got some love at the CIM. Here we go. 3, 2, runners to your mark, go! There it is, ladies and gentlemen, the start of the 37th running of the the California International Marathon. Here we go! Everyone is going so fast. I think here would be a good part to talk about my overall race strategy going into the CIM Marathon. My training cycle went really well and I felt confident and good going into this race. Several days before the race, I was asked by many different people What is going to be your marathon goal? And I heard about this on Strava, on Facebook, on YouTube and the different channels. And my answer was honestly, I'm going to run by heart rate and by feel, and I'm going to go out there to have a lot of fun and to slap many high fives. Yeah, brother. Then as the days got closer to the race, more and more people kept asking that, what is your goal time? What is your goal time? And this is when all of a sudden in the back of my mind, I started thinking about it a little bit more. A few years ago when I ran a 2:44 marathon in Boston, I actually had terrible weather conditions. There was 20 to 30 miles an hour headwind the entire race. And so then when you compare that to CIM where the race course is fast, you're surrounded by other fast racers and runners, typically the weather forecast is good, and even this time the weather forecast was good low temperatures, and I was feeling good throughout my actual training cycle going into it. This is where it crossed my mind that, you know what, I've been able to run quite fast at a low heart rate, and I felt confident going into the race. Who knows, I might actually be able to run a PR at this race. Very last minute, I decided to change my actual race strategy to be a little bit more aggressive even earlier on in the race. As much as I understand the importance of starting out relatively slow and holding back early on, I didn't want to lose too much time early on in the race either. The one thing I don't have much experience with is humidity, both in training and in racing, and that was one thing that last-minute change in the forecast that I hadn't really thought about. Let's head back to the race to see how things unfold. For some reason, the heart rate is much higher than I normally have at this pace, so not sure what's going on. Just going to be taking it down a gear. Great job, man. Nom nom. That's the beauty, you can take these gels without drinking water so I can more go time-based instead of where the aid stations are. With the water stations, what I usually do is I take the later ones so it's not so busy. Yeah, thank you very much, appreciate it. Looking good. Yeah, brother. Can I grab one? Thank you. Get them boogers out. Nice looking. I hope we're there. Let's do it! Go Forest! Go Forest! Great job, you guys! Much respect. Keep it up. Thank you, sir. You're looking really strong. 15 miles in. It's interesting to see. I've seen quite a few people drop already. I don't know if it's the humidity, but can't control the breathing. Heart rate keeps going up a bit. I'll just keep going. So this is mile 16, how far I see I am. Look who I'm getting passed by! That's Juliana! Hey Juliana, do you want to get on the Extra Mileless Podcast? I would love to! Alright, so here I'm officially asking her to join the podcast. And now save your energy and run strong! I'll see you at the finish! Thank you, great job! Appreciate you guys' help. Nice half! There it is, let's go! Good job, mate. Thank you, man. You too. How you doing? Good. Keep it up, man. You're looking strong. Wow, party going on! You got this, you got this, you got this! Go get him, Forrest! Finish it! It's not happening today. I don't know what's going on. Humidity, dude. Good job, man. Good job. You're looking strong. Keep it up, this man. Half a mile. You got this! Yeah, guys, this race is so fun! 0.2 miles to go! Yes, we are! I'll be so happy once I finish. Here we go! You did it! So good to see you. This is a 39-minute PR. Congrats, brother. I told you I was going for it. That did not go according to plan. However, that was such a fun experience. Good job, man. How did it go? We finished. Yeah, very much. Look at that. Appreciate it. Look at this beauty. This one is for Sadie and Zoe for their collection. Good job. Thank you. No matter how many marathons you run, it's funny, it's still Sometimes at the finish line, emotional. That was hard. That was so different than any other marathon I've ever done. I think the humidity just got to me like no tomorrow. The breathing was so much harder. The heart rate was way higher than it normally is at this pace, but we ended up finishing in I just got a marathon and it was so easy. You killed it! Thanks, man. Would have been so easy to pull out. So many people I saw on the side of the road just pulling out. Wasn't that day. It wasn't my day either yet. Kept going. Thank you so much. It was pretty rad at mile 16. All of a sudden, like, I'm running and I think I saw— I waved to your camera. Yeah. And then all of a sudden she comes from behind like, oh, like totally comfortable running, like totally able to talk and everything. And I'm just like in a super struggle fest. 2:49. I can't freaking believe it. Unofficial pro. Yeah, that will be. That is so strong. I saw the checkpoint said a half mile to go. I looked down, I thought I had to run like sub-6. I can't run sub-6 in a 5K race. That's why I said I'm gonna play it differently. Awesome. It worked out well. Very well. And in these conditions, I mean, the humidity was about 90%, and that's what's killed anybody. They're not used to or have enough electrolytes in their system. I see a lot of people at 13, they were having cramps and like halfway through One more thing I want to mention is that how awesome the online community is, like the Extramile community and even like the friends from all around the world on Strava. I posted this run and posted something along the lines of like how to just barely miss like the sub-3 mark or something along those lines. And just seeing all the positive, supportive comments that came out of that, like, it just shows me how awesome this community is. That, and I've said it before as well, a finished time is just a number. And I think too many people get very obsessed by having to finish in a certain time, and as long as you're going out there and you do the best you can on race day, then that's, that's like an experience and an accomplishment right there. And I'm not going to lie, although I ran 3:02, which is much slower than my 2:44 PR from a few years back, and I truly thought that I would be in a much better shape today, even for me to run the 3:02 marathon those later stages was an effort. I definitely put in some effort. Yes, I grabbed the camera and I started talking in there, and I know if I wouldn't have had the camera, I probably could have ran it a little bit faster. Yet I've run sub-3-hour marathons several times already, so that wasn't really a goal for me to accomplish anyways. So, but yeah, that was, uh, it was surely a special day. To anyone else out there who raced recently and who might not necessarily have accomplished what they set out to do, it's all good. There's always next time. So let's go back to the drawing board, put in some more training miles, and give it another shot.
