Run Seal Beach

This race is 100% managed and run by volunteers, and 100% of the proceeds go back to the local community. Since 2003, this group has given over $ 1million for recreation and fitness to the community.
It is not run by a big time, profit making race company. Noone on this team gets paid a dime. They deserve a huge vote of YES for the work they do to bring this annual event to the community and recognizing that they needed to cap attendance. And did anyone mention the Kid’s Run and Fun Zone? Outstanding.
Have done this race for over 15 years now. Great community day all around.

I walked the. 10k on Sunday .? So in some ways i have a different perspective. I was staying in Seal Beach and woke up at 7 am and walked over to the start. So, I obviously did not have any parking problems. I had a good time in both how I felt about the race and my personal time for finishing. I was able to pick up my bib number and t shirt the afternoon before without any hassle at all. By the time I finished, the finish line had thinned out and I crossed easily (yes without a medal). There was some confusion about walkers on one side and runners on another when the race was getting started. I have run and walked many 10ks and half and full marathons in my life and have almost always experienced some confusion at finish lines. One of the things I would highly recommend is some orange slices offered at miles 2and 4. If you have a warm day, you might need one or both. I was lucky I had a licorice slice I nabbed at the beginning. I did not think the course was the best, as the 10k people were led thru a very dull area out of the Village. I think a looped course or some other way to show the beauty of Seal Beach. It would be nice if they had more refreshments at the finish line in the park. They wrapped everything up very quickly and after a few hours you would not even know a race had taken place. I think it is a small race with some growing pains, but still it was a fun time in Mayberry by the sea.

This annual 5/​10K race is a perfect, fun and well organized event. How can you not enjoy running the streets in beautiful downtown Seal Beach with the ocean and pier in sight at all times. As an all volunteer organization that gives all their proceeds away to support recreation and fitness programs, how can you not support and run this race every year !

Chaotic and disorganized.
GARMIN STATS
Elevation Gain: 159 ft
Elevation Loss: 151 ft
MinElevation: –15 ft
MaxElevation: 67 ft
On the plus side, this was a cheap race for a 10K — I paid $ 28. I was hoping that it would be a fun, local race, but I was surprised by the number of people there that morning. I’m glad that they at least capped the number of participants to 5,500, because more than that would have been truly unmanageable.
For the 8:00 start, we parked next to the fire station just after 6:30 am with plenty of parking available in the lot and walked to the Community Center to pick up our bibs. My partner had no problem picking up his bib; however, they lost mine! They directed me to the Problems desk, and where they looked up my registration on the computer and printed off a new number for me within minutes. We walked back to our car so we could drop off our shirts and eat my pre-​race breakfast, and this parking lot was completely full.
You could self-​assign yourself to one of three waves, for 7:00 — 8:00, 8:00 — 9:00, and 9:00+. I placed myself at the back of Wave 2, and we could barely hear the loudspeaker of announcements and the anthem from back there… in fact, most people were happily chatting away through the anthem.
The course was completely packed until the 5K participants split away from the 10K participants, at which point I was a lot happier. The course itself was easy, but boring and uninspiring, and I was completely hating the course until we turned the corner onto the bike path along the river during Mile 4… this was the best part of the course, and by this point the crowd had thinned out enough that the narrower path wasn’t even a deterrent.
On-​course entertainment consisted solely of a crew of children at Mile 6 singing «Don’t Stop Believing.» Haha. Good job, kids. You’re probably having more fun than I am.
We crossed the finish line… and ran directly into a massive crowd of people. My friend had just completed his first 10K and was feeling slightly delirious, and the poor crowd control at the finish line and the ridiculous lines to get an orange slice or any other post-​race sustenance is completely unacceptable. We managed to swim our way through the crowd to find out where they were passing out water, but it wasn’t even readily apparent to us where or if it was even available. We decided that the worst thing to do would be to stand still, motionless in line for a post-​race snack after running, which I began to worry would make my friend faint from the sudden drop in blood pressure, so we left that anticlimactic, hell hole pit of a finish line, and that was that.
I did this race mostly because I thought it was cheap, and it showed. I wouldn’t do this one again. It’s too large for the organizers to figure out how to manage it effectively. Oh well, at least the shirt looks nice.

Every city has their own 10K and Seal Beach is no different. This one seems to be quite popular given the amount of people that were present. Unfortunately it looks like this event has gotten too big for its own good.
Some of the pros:
–Easy parking in the marina. You still have to get there 30 minutes before the start time and it can be a walk. Parking in town can be more difficult.
Wave starting. Always a plus.
–The first and last part of the run. Along Ocean Ave and down the San Gabriel River.
–Timing chip
Some of the cons:
–The middle part of the run which is basically through the industrial part of town which including running by large power plants.
–No medal at the end.
–Absolute chaos at the finish line.
–The finish line is not near the starting line, so the walk back to the car was about an additional mile.
Which leads me to the crowd. It wasn’t bad at the starting line, but the finish line was at the pier and there just was not enough space to accommodate everyone. There was a bottleneck to get water and snacks and it was completely disorganized. There wasn’t much for crowd control. There was a second bottleneck to get into the vendor area. They posted finish times nearby but it was in order of the finish, so if you didn’t know when you finished, good luck finding your time. They also indicated that they would email your time to you shortly afterward. One person in our group got his time emailed to him within an hour and the rest of us never got an email so we had to look it up online.
So this one is A-​OK. Not sure if I’ll do it again.