The Conquer the Pier 5k in Venice Beach was flat out not my favorite, for a few reasons.
- I just didn’t feel good. I haven’t recovered well since going to Japan, and my body has been fairly tired. I also think I probably picked some sort of cold a few weeks ago and now am dealing with the aftermath of congestion.
- The Venice Beach Pier was crowded; I thought I was going to get pushed off.
- The course wasn’t closed, which meant a large group of people weaving around a lot of other people.
- Venice Beach just smells like pot, which meant you were running through a lot of people smoking. You do you, I just don’t particularly want to run a hard 5k through it.
Onto the race. I had high hopes for the Conquer the Pier 5k. While my body didn’t feel good, at least it would be fun. We left around 4 on Friday and got to our hotel around 7, after many stops including dinner and packet pickup. I slept moderately okay the night before but could always use more sleep. We arrived at Venice Beach around 7:30 am and parked in the beach lot. Thankfully, parking was easy, although it does cost money. My warmup was just over 2 miles and I headed to the very crowded Conquer the Pier 5k start on the pier.
Conquer the Pier 5k Race:
After some words from the organizers, we were off. Running on the narrow pier, followed by a hard 90 degree turn was an extreme bottleneck situation. Somehow about 500 people are supposed to run down this pier, and I can see how it might get crowded and not runnable, especially towards the back. The hard 90-degree turn onto the jogging path had me come to a near stop. The beach path was sandy, and when we turned onto it, I was surprised we weren’t running on the roads. My first mile was 6:24, and I immediately knew I took it out too fast.
From there, I just tried to hold on. I was running near a younger girl who liked to run as close as she could. Is that necessary? I never felt like I loosened up because I was on guard for people running on the course. Venice Beach is a tourist area, so the path was crowded with non-runners and runners not running the race. Of course, they have the right to be there, but it just felt unsafe for so many people to be on the narrow path. There were plenty of people casually walking across the course with not a care in the world.
I hit mile 2 of the Conquer the Pier 5k in 6:48, and I was surprised it was that fast. It felt like I was barely going a 7-minute pace. I probably got sick a couple of weeks ago and now have built-up congestion, so breathing feels hard.
The third mile of the Conquer the Pier 5k was just focusing on the finish. The first and third miles were the sandiest, and it was hard to get any traction. Between weaving around people and just being tired, I was over it. I focused on finishing. I was going back and forth with the other girl, but ultimately she passed me. I hit mile 3 of the Conquer the Pier 5k in 6:47 and was shocked it was faster than mile 2.
The last 0.1 miles of the Conquer the Pier 5k felt never-ending because you can see the finish line as you’re running back on the pier. I crossed in 20:51 and was the 6th or 7th female.
Conquer the Pier 5k Thoughts:
I would love to see the Conquer the Pier 5k go on the roads versus the running path. It is simply too big of a race to deal with the congestion of a running path. I don’t know if starting and ending on the pier is my favorite just because it’s so crowded. I can’t say I’m thrilled to run a 20:51 when a few weeks ago I ran under 20 minutes, but I also know my body doesn’t feel its best. The nice thing about 5ks is if you have a bad one, you can always run another one next weekend.
You can see Strava here and more Race Recaps here.
Questions for you:
Have you been to Venice Beach?
What is your favorite race?