Revisiting the Big Sur Marathon...

We ran the Big Sur Marathon in April 2008, and this past weekend we headed back for more (and less). As I was starting to get my act together with running again a few months ago, I managed to convince K that I needed a goal to get me going. That's not unreasonable. But, just any old local 5k or 10k wouldn't do. No, it needed to be a destination race. And, what better than the beautifully scenic (and awfully hilly) Big Sur Marathon? I was not delusional enough to think that I would be back in marathon shape that quickly, but they have a marathon relay option so the decision was made. We managed to convince one of Kurt's friends who lives in San Jose to do the race with us, so team "She made me do it" was born.

Big Sur is a point-to-point course along Highway 1 from Big Sur to Carmel. I was initially planning to run the first two relay legs (about 9-10 miles) because I was eager to run through the trees of Big Sur again then emerge onto the coastline (and be done before the massive hills began leading to Hurricane Point). However, in mid-March, a chunk of the road on Highway 1 where the race is held literally fell into the ocean due to a mudslide.

That obviously caused race organizers to scramble at the last minute to get an alternate course together - an out-and-back from Carmel with the turnaround point just before Rocky Point Bridge. I was disappointed about the course change, but understood that it was a necessity and was glad that the race wasn't canceled altogether.

So, that brings us to race weekend. We flew into San Jose on Friday afternoon and enjoyed a short visit to Palo Alto that evening. Um, yeah, I'd live there. Then, we headed down to Monterey on Saturday morning to take care of packet pickup and had a nice lunch on the wharf, as K enjoyed all the samples of chowder that he could get his hands on.

We made the short drive to Carmel (again, I would LOVE to live there) that evening to visit the beach and have an early dinner.

Ocean Avenue in Carmel

View of Pebble Beach from Carmel Beach

After dinner, we drove along the coast to catch the sunset on our way back to Monterey.

We had an early wake-up call on Sunday for the race. The logistics for this race are quite challenging on a typical year because there are multiple races (marathon + relay, 21 mile, 10.6 mile, 9 mile, 5k) being held simultaneously and runners have to be shuttled to their respective starting points on the course. As the race director noted, all of this is usually spread out along 26.2 miles of highway, but this year it was compressed into 12.1 miles of highway due to the out-and-back nature of the course. All of this meant a very early wake up for us on Sunday, as we had to be at the bus pickup at 4am for our first relay runner. Oy.

A very tired team "She made me do it" at 4am

We had all been pretty ambivalent about how we were going to divide up the 5 relays legs, particularly me since the legs that I had originally wanted to run were not part of the new out-and-back course. With no real rhyme or reason to it, our friend ended up running the first two legs then handed off to K for the next two legs which left me with the final, arguably hardest, leg of 6.5 miles through the Carmel Highlands. K ended up running into the finish with me, so he actually got to see the whole course, which included a 2-mile detour at the end in Point Lobos State Reserve which is not part of the regular course. 

I wasn't running this race too seriously because I wanted to enjoy the scenery and stop for pictures. Here's a few views of the section of course that I ran:

Strawberries at mile 21-ish! Yum!

View from Point Lobos State Reserve

Sassy K

Happy to be done.

While we all enjoyed the scenery and experience of running on Highway 1, we also realized just how much waiting around is involved in doing a relay race like this. Lots and lots of waiting - waiting to get shuttled to your respective starting point, waiting for your runner to come through so you can start running, and waiting to get shuttled back to the finish area.

But, it was worth it. :)