Back in the fall, running the B2B (Boston 2 Big Sur Challenge) seemed like a challenging and fun adventure. More than that though, it was simply an excuse to go to Big Sur - a place I've wanted to visit for 10 years. When I trained myself into a stress fracture in December/January, I considered it a long shot that I would be able to run Big Sur after Boston...but thankfully I was able to toe the line.
The days before the Big Sur Marathon were awesome. San Francisco for 3 days, and Big Sur for 5 - with two notable highlights being a daylong bike throughout San Fran (including a ride across the Golden Gate bridge), and a kick ass 6 mile trail run in Big Sur. Without getting into too much detail - the trip exceeded my high expectations.
An interesting and stupid note: the trail run was 3.5 miles up, 2.5 down. By no means an easy run, but made even more difficult thanks to a turned ankle a half mile in. Eli was able to avoid the loose rock hidden behind a fallen tree, but I was not so lucky. With three days until my 2nd marathon in a two week period, I was lucky to avoid anything more serious.
The morning of the race I woke up at 3AM to catch a 3:30 bus to the starting line (FUN!). When I woke up I grabbed my Garmin (plugged in all night) and it immediately read 'low batter'...I'm not happy with the charger on the FR210 - it's a low quality POS. It ended up shutting off around mile 10 of the marathon - so sorry, but no mile by mile splits.
The starting area was very crowded, cold, and damp. I was shivering way too much for my liking - wasting precious energy, but time passed quickly and before I knew it I was on the starting line. The first few miles are fairly downhill before leveling out, with the forest on both sides. After ~3 miles I was out of the forest and running with 'mountains' to the right, farmland to the left, and the ocean just a bit past the farms. The further along we went, the less farmland between the runners and the ocean. So far it was easy running and I was running between a 7:30 - 8:00 minute pace.
There was a very solid hill around mile 8, but from looking at the elevation profile prior to the race, I knew that the real challenge lay ahead. Climbing over 500 feet over the course of two miles and peaking at Hurricane Point miles 11 and 12 loomed large.
With my Garmin dead at mile 10, I ran to Hurricane Point based on effort and unaware of my pace. It was a solid effort made even more difficult because Hurricane Point has it's name for a reason - the wind was brutal. But I kept the leg turnover going without worrying about hitting a certain pace, and when I finally started the descent I was able to open it up a little bit and hit the half in 1:43:43.
The day before the marathon, I got word that an old friend had a family art gallery along Highway 1, so Elizabeth and I went to check out the Hawthorne Gallery and met ended up meeting my buddy's younger sister. She happened to be running the marathon as part of relay team to raise money, and we all figured to meet up after the race for a beer. But quite randomly I happened to be running at almost the same pace as her team, and I was able to finally run with someone from mile ~16-22. My legs felt pretty banged up, but shooting the breeze with a new pal was a welcome reprieve from focusing either on sore quads or how my feet felt like brittle rocks.
From mile 22 to the finish I was feeling pretty good, with random spurts where my calf and quad would spasm and threaten to seize up. Luckily, I'm slightly more experienced with the distance now, and I could tell that I was unlikely to hit the wall - so I held my pace. I had been passed by another runner wearing a Boston Marathon jersey earlier in the race, and he was about 150 yards ahead of me with a mile to go. So in the spirit of competition, I made it my goal to pass him. I ended up making up that ground and putting 11 seconds on him in the meantime.
The last mile or so I finished extremely strong, and I'm happy with my finishing time of 3:28:35. Even better - I was barely sore the following day.
My hope is that the two marathons serve as additional building blocks to a solid aerobic foundation. I feel like I haven't been getting faster for the past year+, and it's about time I start setting some respectable PRs. We'll see this summer.
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