Living in OC, there are few series challenges that interest me – Beach Cities that include OC/SurfCity/Long Beach half or full marathons, and Triple Crown which includes Carlsbad/La Jolla/Americas Finest City half marathons. Each of these races span across different months/seasons, and it gives me enough motivation to continue to run and train, without losing interest in running! For the TriCrown Series, Carlsbad is in January, La Jolla is usually in April and America’s finest city is in August. For Beach Cities, Surf City is in February, OC is in May and Long Beach is in October!

Triple Crown series is calendar year based challenge series, so you have to commit to it at the beginning of the year, but Beach Cities challenge is ‘consecutive’ 3 races. So you can start and do 3 races any time.

Even tho people go crazy for Beach Cities Challenge medal, I find it to be tacky but a bling is a bling, so I am on board!

My goal with this post is to entertain the thought of the readers of this blog entry to either start this challenge, or continue if you have done Surfcity back in February!

You can still sign up online ( online registration probably might close on May 3rd)

Use code RACEGRADER2017 for 10% off. With current price, this works out better for full marathon and half marathon. Registration link: http://www.ocmarathon.com/

Race day is May 7th – Sunday, and be ready to get up super early , as the start times are 5:30 a.m for marathon, and 6:15am for half. ( I would rather do early race than be roasted in the heat later!).

Sign up!