2015/05/13

Big Sur Marathon

Saturday morning Casey and I packed up and met Sharon and her boyfriend Chris to make the trek down to Monterey. We had plenty of time before we checked into our house in Seaside for the evening, and Sharon and Chris hadn't eaten since arriving the night before, so we tried to find some food before we started the trek South. After wandering through little Italy where nothing was open we found a build your own pizza place that really hit the spot.

We got down to Monterey and wandered into the expo. After the massiveness of the Boston expo this one seemed rather quaint, but it was still pretty good sized. Plus there were great booths including several other destination races, and one handing out Godiva chocolate! After picking up our race stuff we wandered out onto the pier to get a good look at the ocean. I finally found a souvenir shop with some cool stuff in it, and it was fun to be in a small, touristy town with lots of other runners wandering around.

Next we headed up to Seaside and checked into our Airbnb house, did a bit of unpacking, and headed out to find supper. Pasta and seafood seemed like a good combo for taking in the coastal experience and still being ready for marathon racing the next morning. We headed back and were in bed by shortly after 9:00 because we had to be on the bus to the start at 4:15 the next morning.

Our 3:45 wakeup came up really soon. The whole bus ride to the start was in the dark, but at least we had a snazzy charter bus to ride in, no bumpy schoolbus for this race. Since the Clif Bar breakfast strategy worked well at Boston I stuck with it (plus I had some left over from the Boston expo). When we got to the start area there were bagels and bananas, so I got my second breakfast in and tried to stay warm and awake for the hour and a half until race start. Sharon and I found a place to sit down and semi relax, and a bit later when I put my head up to look around I was surprised to see that some mountains had snuck up on me out of the darkness.
Mountains, where did those sneaky things come from?
 Once daylight started appearing the imminent racing started to feel more real. They finally started calling waves up to the start area, so we dropped our sweats (yay bag drop!) and headed to the start line.
Awake and ready to Race!

Ready, Steady, Go!
Having not really run much in the week since my last marathon I really had no idea what to expect from my legs when the race got going. I settled into what seemed like an appropriate pace and was rather pleased when I went through the mile mark in 6:30. Not blazing fast, but it didn't feel hard, and it meant if it continued to not feel hard I should be under the 3 hour mark. Unlike the crazy crowd energy at Boston most of the Big Sur course was pretty sparsely populated, although there was tons of course side music. We started with the relay runners, so I was a bit confused when there were runners who did not look like sub 3 hour marathoners pounding along with me. I figured this mystery out at mile 5 when we hit the first exchange and all of those people tagged off to the next runner on their team.
One of the bands playing along the course
About mile 5 we broke out of the Redwood forest we had been running through and hit the coast. We were greeted with a grueling hill that stretched out into the distance, with a driving, buffeting headwind that served as a constant reminder that this would not be an easy undertaking, and with some absolutely amazing views of the ocean to our left and the mountains to our right.
The Ragged Edge of the Western World
Course Profile, get the easy stuff out of the way early.
From mile 5 to mile 9 was a steady uphill that just loomed in front of us, straight as an arrow. I went to work gathering up a pack so I could get some relief from the wind. Within a mile or so a group of 6 of us had gotten together. There were a couple military guys at the front of the pack, and I would bounce up there occasionally to help drive the group forward to pick up more runners before drifting back to get out of the wind. The pace wasn't going quite as fast as I wanted, so I did what I could to keep things moving, but I didn't want to just pull everyone along with me either. It was a fun group though. We quickly grew to about 15 people and had the top 4 or 5 women in our pack as well. My legs were already starting to hurt by mile 8, earlier than usual, but marathon running is all about pain management, so I just took note and kept running.

There was a brief respite from climbing after mile 9, but then we could see the next couple miles winding ahead of us into the distance. A relay runner passed our group just as we were starting the next climb and I tucked in with him and bridged ahead to the next couple runners, but they were fading and soon we all drifted back to the pack. I made one more attempt to gap the pack and was again unsuccessful, so I decided to sit in and wait for attrition to do it's work. 
Apparently we crossed this amazing bridge. I was trying to hang on for the downhill
Hanging on to the back of the pack across Bixby bridge
After the top the pace surged as we dropped down the back side of Hurricane Pt. My legs were not enjoying the descents, being already pretty beat up, but I was determined to stay in contact with the pack. Eventually the dowhill ended and I hopped back to the front to keep driving the pack forward. The guys and gals at the front of the pack were fun, joking around and sharing the work. There were a lot of jokes coming up to mile 17 about tagging off at the relay exchange. My favorite comment was some guy who said we were the pack that came to run in the most beautiful marathon in the US and spent the whole race watching each others feet. There was a bit of truth to that sadly. Things were really hurting at this point, and there were still 9 long miles to go. The race was getting interesting though as our pack started to thin out, so I was fully engaged in the race at this point.

Pushing the pace
When we hit the next series of hills around mile 21 things really broke up. I lost contact with a few people, including the first place woman, going through an aid station and taking a gel. I decided to bridge up to them and tried to bring the gal in second place with me. She made it most of the way with me but wasn't going uphill as well as I was. I tagged on to the first place gal Malia and the two guys she was running with. Our little pack started to get a good gap on those behind us. I counted seconds back occasionally to figure out how far behind the second place gal was. The two other guys in our group dropped, and I took the job of pace setting upon myself. 
Some gorgeous scenery, although from my perspective this just looked like a road
With about 4 miles left to race it was easier to put in the extra effort to pull Malia away from her competition than to think about pushing in for myself. We caught two more guys and they clung on to our group. At this point my legs were not taking dowhills well at all and Malia got a gap on me. I almost closed it up on the last climb, but couldn't quite do it. I knew I wasn't too far safe of the 3 hour mark, so I tried to keep the pace strong and managed to get at least a small gap on the other two guys running with me.
Pushing for the finish line
I held my gap on the other two, and ended up running a 2:57:38, good enough for 16th place. Even though my time was quite a bit slower than Boston, and slower than I was hoping for, I was pretty pleased with how I raced. I was smart when I needed to be smart and aggressive when I needed to be aggressive. I wish I could have held on to not get beat by any girls, but Malia ran a great race and is way more talented and driven than I am, so I don't feel bad about getting beaten.
Happy to be done, now where is the food?
I grabbed some quick food and beverage to start the recovering process as quickly as possible, and hobbled back out to meet up with my sister and Chris and cheer Sharon in. She made it in safely under the 4 hour mark. It sounds like the race was a struggle for her, but she got it done and was all smiles at the finish.

The B2B hospitality tent was great. While the normal marathon runners were eating bag lunches (still pretty decent post race food, don't get me wrong) we got fresh fruit and salad, chocolate milk, brisket, pasta salad, pineapple juice, and other goodies. I ate as much as my still somewhat rebellious stomach would allow and we headed over for awards. I missed getting a B2B award by 4 minutes, but I did finish 5th in my age group (yeah, awards go 5 deep here, so I just snuck in).
Getting an age group award along with the overall race winner Adam Roache
We had to get checked out of our room, so I didn't get stay for the Mozarctic award, which goes to the fastest runner from a locale that gets more than 24" annual snowfall. I won that category by about 20 minutes, so I'll find out what my award is when it shows up in the mail.

We headed back up to San Jose where Casey dropped us off and hit the road for the long drive back to Colorado (thank you so much for being my driver/companion for the week Casey, it made the trip a ton of fun). Sharon and Chris were flying out that evening, but I couldn't get a flight until the next day, so I checked into a hotel near the airport and we got in a bit of hot tub and pool relaxation time and made our way to a nearby Chipotle for supper before they hopped a shuttle to the airport. I normally would prefer to eat local cuisine vs a chain restaurant when traveling, but Chipotle sounded way too good to pass up.

I spent some more time in the hot tub the next morning before checking out of the hotel and spending a good chunk of the day wandering around San Jose. I went through Japantown and had a rather tasty bento box lunch then wandered over to a nearby park with a cool rain garden display and a huge rose garden. I don't know much about roses, but whoever put this garden together really does. They are sorted by the place where they originated and the time period when they were cultured, going all the way back to the 1600's or something crazy like that. Then I caught a bus to the airport, got in a nice nap during the flight, and Jeff picked me up to return me to my car. I made the trek back down to Northfield and got right to sleep so I could head to work the next day.

That ends this adventure story. This weekend is TNC running camp, so I'll hopefully have some fun stories from there to relate to you all next week. Thanks for reading!

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