california dreamin'

Big Sur rocks!! Wow.

had a great time in cali this last weekend. my brother lives in santa cruz with his girlfriend. had not seen him in the last year. so it was great to hang with him. it was his bday weekend. and he just got into running in the last couple of months. so the big sur 5k would be his first race.

on saturday we drove down to monterrey to pick up our race packets and checkout the marathon expo. expo was pretty cool. we got to see Dean Karnazes do a speaking session. he's great. i really like him a lot and recommend his book to everyone. if you've not read it, read it now. he's pretty reserved and actually a bit shy. so that was a surprise to me as i thought with all the press he's gotten that he would be this total media savvy kind of guy. he's not. he's just like you and me, except he runs farther.

after we left the expo we drove down 17 mile drive past pebble beach. out of this world. amazing. some people have a crap load of money. kind of insane.
that dumped us into carmel, we headed back toward hwy 1, took a right to the south, and quickly found the finish/start line for the race on sunday. here on hwy 1 in carmel, at rio road, is a sign that says "big sur 26 miles" this is the sign that inspired a local runner to create the race 22 years ago. we then drove down to big sur. this is the marathon course. pretty cool.

well words cannot truly do justice to the coastline down to big sur. suffice it to say when you see it, you get it. holy crap is it amazing. we hung out at one by brother's favorite beaches in big sur for a bit. very nice. then drove back to carmel/monterry and then on to santa cruz. the drive is just amazing, the hills are intense, the wind can be constant. it's a challenging marathon course to say the least. they recommend that you add 20 minutes on to your goal time when running big sur. crazy.

sunday morning 5am santa cruz, we're up, making coffee and getting dressed. it's about a 45 minute drive down to carmel. the race starts at 7:30. it's overcast and cold. perfect.

the drive is uneventful, we stopped for coffee etc...had a pre-race snack. feeling decent. found parking. we now had to hike/run to the start as we did not have pins for our race numbers. or so I thought. (I found the pins when I unpacked last night. lol) we barely found pins in time, hit the porto's, and then over to the start line. the start line for the 5k is the finish line for the marathon/5k etc....

weather is cold, overcast, foggy, almost rainy. perfect. : )

i didn't have high expectations for this race. i just wanted to go out and have fun. maybe run with my brother. just enjoy it. well he was fine running on his own. so i did my thing as well. first mile was all uphill. i was feeling good and kept going. the next half mile wound through a neighborhood, then jumped onto a dirt path. path started us back towards hwy 1, houses above and to the left of us, and a gorgeous bay to the right. hit mile 2 as we got back to hwy 1, feeling good still and time was good. as we turned onto hwy 1 we started uphill, this was a tough climb at this point in the race, but you knew once you got to the top it was all downhill. once over the top i was cruising and picking up the pace, feeling good, got to the finish and still had enough to kick it in. ended up PRing it by almost 30 seconds!!

it was a tough course, and i was a bit surprised to pr it, but then i wasn't as it's been two months since i pushed it on a 5k. so i think it's more down to conditioning and getting fitter over the last couple of months rather than a huge jump on a 5k. either way it felt good.

my bro had a great time in his first 5k. he's seems to like running and i really hope he sticks with it.

i am seriously considering doing the full marathon next year. and i encourage anyone and everyone to do the same. it's an amazing place. would be so cool to do it with some of y'all. there's also a half marthon in november that i'm considering doing.

http://www.bsim.org/

yesterday on the flight home to austin from san jose i saw a couple that i knew from the austin runners club, that was really cool, they are a neat older couple. it was his 10th big sur marathon. pretty amazing.

i'll be heading back to cali in july to run the 1/2 at the san francisco marthon. if anyone wants to join us on that give me a hollar. it should be a blast, we are running the 1st half which goes over the golden gate bridge.

http://www.runsfm.com/home.html

adios y'all,

chuck d