This weekend I was down at the spectacular Big Sur International Marathon south of the Bay Area in California. What an amazing course! Two years ago there was a land slide that meant the course was an out-and-back and missed the first half of the normal course, so it was great to go back again this year to do the whole thing.
It's one of the most beautiful road marathon courses in the world, as the photos below show, plus it attracted a fair few ultrarunners this year - Mike Wardian getting back to form after injury, Badwater winner Oswaldo Lopez, Sean Meissner, Scott Dunlap and more. Always great to catch up with friends at races, but it doesn't happen as much at the road stuff as on trails.
Due to the 50k last weekend and Miwok 100k next weekend, my main aim was for a hard tempo run and to enjoy the views. However, it's traditionally a ridiculously windy course with around 2,000ft of climbing so it's not the fastest marathon out there. The first 6-7 miles were easy and fast but then we suddenly hit a wall of wind which increased the effort level exponentially. The strength of the wind ebbed and flowed but it was always a head-wind to the finish. In addition there are several other shorter races using the same course and all have significant number of walkers so the day is spent weaving around people but not in a way that slows the runners down.
Put this on your to-do list if you like road races...or even if you don't. Full results are here.
Great to see you at the start! And then you blasted off and threw down a 2:40. Nice!
ReplyDeleteSee you at Miwok...