Big Sur Marathon – race off many runners’ bucket lists. I had an amazing time, but the race part of it was probably the simplest one of it all 😅. I’m going to use titles for each section, dear reader, in case you’d like to skip to the actual race (although I think that the rest of it is actually way more entertaining.
Road to Big SUr Marathon
Well, if you visited Planet Earth in the past two years, you most likely noticed this little thing called the pandemic. As we are all painfully aware, it started in March 2020. I was originally scheduled to run Big Sur Marathon 2020. Obviously, that got cancelled, as did 2021. So here I was, coming to the 2022 race. But I swear, the universe did not want me to make it!
Just make it to Monterey!
Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong! Flight itself was pleasant enough – no particular delays, nobody puked in the galley (that was when I was coming back from spring break in Disney, but that’s a story for another day) and I even got lucky enough not to have anybody seated in the middle seat right next to me. Yay! Oh, and the guy at the end of the row was pretty cool. We chatted a bunch, although never asked each other for names.
And then I got to San Francisco, where things started to go wrong. Well, I don’t know who designed that airport (and the car rental building in particular), but I hope they burn in hell! It was awful, confusing and I kept just wandering around the area. Lady next to me in line to car pick-up said she had the same issues. At this point, I started to get hungry and kind of need to pee, but I really wanted to get away from the airport. So off I went in my cheapest, smallest economy car they had (I promise – this will come back later).
How is the drive there?
I asked GPS to tell me which way to go and faithfully followed directions. The road was very ‘scenic’ (steep, windy, with no shoulders, but occasional views). A few miles into the road, I got a flat tire – ugh! Well, it took a couple of miles to find a place where I wouldn’t be stopped on a blind corner. I called for help while trying to roll into a place where I could wait for help. All roads said ‘private road!’. That was unhelpful… I finally saw a spot where one could pull off. Sadly, there was a really sketchy looking car already there, so I noped right out of there! Finally, I found a decent spot, gave AAA (roadside assistance) directions how to find me and just sat there in the car.
I was told it would be up to an hour (was closer to 30 minutes actually). As you can guess, by then I REALLY had to pee. It was not helpful when the world’s biggest german shepherd came sniffing around. I was way too freaked out to even consider stepping out of the car. Eventually, the dog’s owner showed up. The guy’s clothes have definitely seen better days, but he looked nice enough, so I went to talk to him. As it turned out, he took care of vacation homes in the area. And guess what? He let me into one of them to pee!
And right after that, AAA showed up and put on the little dingy spare on the rental car. They also informed me I need to head to car rental place to get the car replaced. They even told me where to go.
Did you think this would be easy?
If so, I’m going to venture a guess that you haven’t been paying attention to the news. It took me forever to get to the place and then I couldn’t find it. No wonder – it was shut down. I called the number on the door. And guess what? They said they are a nearby branch, but they have zero cars in inventory and that I had to go back to San Jose airport. That was a nice hike in a car that has to go super slow and careful…
Well, I did eventually make it to San Jose airport. Have you already guessed that all of their fleet was booked up?
At this point, I was on the verge of a total meltdown. Fortunately, the nice lady at the counter was super encouraging. She even told me that I will make it to the damn race if she has to drive me there herself! They did find a car eventually. It had to be cleaned, so they told me it will be like 10 minutes of waiting. I was way too grateful to get a car to mind waiting! Although I did excuse myself to have a quick meltdown. I knew it would be ok at this point, but I had to process. And the car turned out to be a super nice SUV! It felt a lot more comfortable on those California freeways!
And yes, I did half-expect to get into a car wreck. I felt like the universe was REALLY against me here.
But I made it!
I actually did a little happy dance in front of the expo building. One of the volunteers came over to ask what’s up because she was a bit concerned. I explained. She personally escorted me to everything I needed to get done there, so she could be sure no additional disasters occurred…
I was super excited, but my face fell a bit when I saw my bus ticket (since this marathon is all one way, they bus people to the start line). 3:15am departure 😳. Needless to say, this was one of those rare moments when you are grateful for jetlag. I just decided not to adjust to the new time zone. This turned out to be a lot harder, as my hotel room had a skylight and I tried going to sleep in broad daylight. I drugged myself the night before the race. But I am getting ahead of myself…
Saturday before the race
I was sure nothing strange could happen from there on. I did wake up at 3am local time, but I opted for just getting up, showering (the water was rather cool – again, I promise this will be relevant later) and reading until it looked like it was late enough to venture out into the world. First stop: WalMart for disposable pre-race clothes. It was rather chilly. And that wind! I am glad I am a small woman because it lets me pick clothes from basically any section and worst-case scenario, they are too baggy (which I wasn’t heading to New York Fashion Week, so nobody cared). I ended up with pants one size too big and men’s sweatshirt. But they were from the dollar bins!
Ok, so shopping was fine. Then I opted for a walk on the beach. I had to move at some point during the day! It was next level windy! It confirmed my suspicion that I would have to run in the race shirt (long sleeve). I brought a tank top with me and the weather was definitely way too cold for it.
The walk was spectacular! The only odd part here was when a gentleman approached me to let me know that while I was walking, some woman drove into the parking lot, took a picture of my car with the license plate and drove off. I still have no idea what that was about.
Race day!!!
Let’s face it: I don’t think I could have handled any more ‘adventures’. On the plus side: I was so past feeling stressed about the race itself. So I made it to my bus (conveniently across the street from my hotel) and headed for the starting line. It was pitch black, the ride took over an hour and a few times we were right on a cliff. I’d be lying if I said that a thought that the universe may take another stab at preventing me from running didn’t cross my mind while looking into a ravine… Fortunately, nothing dramatic happened.
I am grateful that at the starting line, they served coffee (which I don’t drink) and hot water (why not tea? Either way, it was warm and for that, I was grateful). We had to sit there for two and a half hours! I peed right upon my arrival, so I just got to watch the infinity lines. And feel the squeeze – there was simply not enough real estate there for all the people!
Intellectually, I get why they needed to do logistics the way they did (they had multiple races going on a narrow road), but all that waiting sucked. And it was freezing.
Eventually, when they told us to start lining up, I actually put my cheap warm clothes into the checked bag. I did regret it later – it was still freezing! And then, just like that, the race started.
Big Sur Marathon itself!
Please note: these pictures may not be in correct order. It’s not really easy to tell…
I knew there would be hills. But profile map below definitely feels a lot worse than it looks LOL. Special darling: that uphill that starts on mile 25. It makes the 2 mile climb in the first half look almost reasonable!
Let the games begin!
I started in corral C – expected finish between 4 and 5 hours. I don’t think below 4h is really a possibility for me yet, especially since there were serious hills ahead. But under 5h? Totally doable!
Oh, and nice thing: the night ended by the time started just before 7am. It was great because running a marathon in the darkness is not that much fun. I know, I tried. Although I still think that for New Mexico, I will want to do Roswell Marathon, which is in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere…
As you can see from the profile, better part of first 10k is a downhill. That was awesome! I started super optimistically, as it always happens for me on downhills. I actually went so fast that I caught up to first stragglers of corral B in about half a mile. It sure gave me an extra boost of confidence! Although I am still trying to figure out how those people ended up in the sub-4 category…
So it’s not all down hill?
I loved those downhills! Sadly, they ended. And you know what started then? Wind. It’s been a week and I am still salty about it: it was a head wind (and the race was point-to-point, not a loop, so it was always a head wind), it was strong and it was cold. I am so happy I wore my long sleeve! I still felt a bit chilly though…
Obviously, I got to run in crowds. But then, that never truly dispersed. And thank goodness! It was a long run through wilderness, so I had to rely on myself and fellow runners for entertainment. Well, and occasional mile marker and performer. But those started a bit later. Not that I blame them – it was ridiculously early on those first few miles!
And then the main attraction of the Big Sur Marathon!
If you as much as spared a glance at the profile of the Big Sur Marathon, you had surely noticed a nasty looking uphill. It was climb to the Hurricane Point, which is about 2 miles long. When I was at the bottom, I took a picture and told myself that this is the worst and it ends at that turn. I believed it, too!
This lovely band was by around that corner. And, as it turned out, the other half of the ascend. I fake smile well, don’t I?
I think that the organizers knew well that people needed entertainment, so a bit further up the hill sat this guy:
Full tux and all! My original pic was uphill, but then I realized I took a picture of a tux-clad piano player with a background of port-a-potties. I wasn’t tired enough to think that was ok LOL.
Back to the views!
There is a reason why the Big Sur Marathon is a bucket list race for many – oh, the views! I was too busy running to play a race photographer, but even I couldn’t skip the famous bridge:
Company matters!
I spent quite a bit of the race on running into two guys. One of them was Tim (or Mike? or some other common name – he was really nice, I swear, just his name didn’t stick) and the other was called Eddy Noonan. That’s the guy in pink shorts. He wore a shirt advertising himself to female athletes as available. He even complained that nobody remembers his name. Well, Eddy, I do! My attempts to find him of Facebook were futile though: there is a ton of guys with the same name! I also managed to accidentally reveal how geeky I was when I told Eddy that Noonan is not that hard to remember, it’s really close to Noonian, as in Noonian Sung, creator of Data in Star Trek TNG. I think I lost ALL cool points there…
It was so much fun chatting with these two! I met a lot of other fun people as well, but none of them kept showing up as often as them. And they heard several times about my plans to head to In-N-Out right after the race…
Wall?
If you spent enough time around endurance runners, you must have heard about The Wall. This is when your body tells you that you can’t go any more. Fortunately, with Diana (my coach, AKA goddess of all things fitness), we discussed this issue a lot. Comes to find out, it’s when you run out of glycogen stores and your body has to turn to fat for fuel. There is actually a really simple solution (assuming you trained enough): carb load correctly. For 3 days, you switch most of your caloric intake to carbs. You don’t even have to overeat or anything. Just stick to carbs. It worked – I am happy to report that I did not hit the wall during Big Sur Marathon.
Last few miles
Not hitting the wall doesn’t mean that it was all sunshine and rainbows though! You still hit hills past mile marker 20 on the Big Sur Marathon, including that ‘darling’ uphill starting at 25. I think I look awful on the above picture. But as my friends and family keep pointing out: you can see that others already switched to walking, but I kept running! Not that I was perfect at running at all times: I did walk up another hill earlier, but I was suddenly overcome by some sort of insanity and I decided that running up the last hill was a hill I was willing to die on (and that it was up to fate whether that would be literal or metaphorical). I made it to the end though! I also started to tell people that cold beer is waiting in one mile 😅.
Sprint to the finish!
When my watch was showing 4:25 or so, I decided that I could probably pick up the pace a bit. I didn’t know exactly how much I had left (since GPS never matches exactly), but I even thought for a second that maybe I could fit in under 4:30. Well, you can check results here (bib 3096). I missed it by 7 seconds!!! It’s my seconds fastest marathon and by far the hardest, so I am super proud of the result. But as you may guess, the :07 doesn’t sit quite right 😅. I was so happy though:
And no, I wasn’t going to wait for a picture in front of the official banner of the Big Sur Marathon. That line was waaay longer than I would want to wait even under the best of circumstances. And after the marathon is not the best of circumstances.
After the race
My best friend Naomi lives like 2 hours south of Monterey and she came to see me! She actually just barely made it to watch me cross the finish line. She even made this amazing sign for me! I’m keeping it – it’s the first time EVER that anybody made a sign for me!
As promised: the race was the least ‘entertaining’ part of this whole endeavor. So back to misadventures…
I realized that I had a checked bag and I needed to pick it up. If for no other reason then because my hotel key was there. I split with Naomi and told her I will find her right there in a couple of minutes. But, dear reader, that is not what happened.
Important side note: none of the areas involved in this trip have much of internet.
I got my bag, swaying like a drunk. I didn’t even grab the beer there! But eventually, I did get my stuff and returned to the reunion spot. Naomi was nowhere to be found. I knew she was trying to reunite with her boyfriend, Derek (he had to park the car – because yes, they barely made it on time), so I figured that maybe this was taking a minute. Reluctantly, I sat down. Past experience told me that getting up would be hard, so I did it against a fence that looked like something I could pull myself up on. I started texting. I tried calling. Nothing! I was getting hungry and, well, annoyed. Finally, I got up to look for Naomi. Turns out they have been sitting 10 feet away from me, but the crowds obstructed our views…
Post-race nutrition
No, I don’t go with great recovery nutrition after the race. I eat junk I want to eat! So, as I kept repeating throughout the race, we went to In-N-Out. It turned out that quite a few people had the same idea – plenty of people in Big Sur Marathon shirts! And some people dressed normally admitted that they raced, but had enough time to go home, shower and change. Guess who we ran into as we were leaving? Well, Eddy and Tim of course! I wonder if it’s because I kept drooling over In-N-Out throughout the race 😜.
What else could go wrong?
I NEVER ask this question. The universe likes answering it way too much! So I was done with the Big Sur Marathon, where the wind blew and I sweated like crazy. All I wanted was a nice, hot, relaxing shower. Remember how I had issues with hot water on Saturday? Well, the water was downright icy on Sunday! I hobbled down to the front desk (because my room was upstairs with no elevator) and asked for help. They did send a maintenance guy. It took him a bit to show up (but within reason) and I was happy to hear that the fix was simple and fast. Finally, I got to shower!
If you ever showered after endurance race, you know what happens when you step in the water: you learn about every spot you chafed. I was surprised: I chafed on my inner thighs. I don’t think I have ever chafed in that area while wearing proper length shorts or pants. It was not pretty…
Once showered and dressed, I rejoined my friends. I got myself a tea and we walked for a bit. It was actually really nice, as I was still full from In-N-Out and I really had to keep moving, so my legs wouldn’t turn into solid wood. We did find this lovely place:
Dinner, followed by chatting, was great. Sadly, all good things must come to an end and I headed for bed – I was tired and had to be up early to drive back to San Francisco.
Trip home
The whole Big Sur Marathon experience had to go out with a bang… Fortunately, not a literal one. I kept warning from lady in San Jose airport in mind and made sure to program GPS not to take me back up the 17. I drove in thick fog and total darkness. It wasn’t easy to stay alert. At some point though, a thought occurred to me: check if GPS listened about the route. Obviously it didn’t! It REALLY wanted me to take the 17. I rebelled and asked it to reroute me. Pro: I got out of the fog quickly. Con: I got to enjoy the ‘scenic’ (long way around) route in absolute darkness. But I did make it to San Francisco airport without any actual disasters.
As you may guess, by the end of the drive I needed to pee. I figured I would get gas before dropping off the rental car though (and I was starting to feel a bit pressured by time – all in my mind though 😅). Turns out SF Airport is not driver-friendly. After doing two loops around the airport and not being able to figure anything out, I had to pee so badly that I decided that paying car rental place’s gas fees was better than peeing myself. At least this part was easy. Getting to the terminal, on the other hand, posed a bit of a challenge – I don’t know who labeled that airport, but it sure isn’t intuitive!
Finally, I made it to the terminal. I did get my steps in trying to find the correct check-in and TSA checkpoint. Line here was insane and at first, it wasn’t moving. I did get to brag about running Big Sur Marathon while waiting, so that was nice 😜. But I made it with plenty of time to spare. At this point though I was happy I gave myself ample time! I got food, refilled water bottle and went to wait for my flight. They had two flights to DC that morning (one to IAD and one to DCA) scheduled 5 minutes apart. One at gate F12 and the other at F13. Fortunately, I knew which gate was mine. I also got thinking: it’s a good thing they are close to each other, so if one gets confused, it’s easy to run over to the other one.
Sadly, I was stuck in the middle seat. For a while, nobody was coming to the aisle one. He was the last one get on the plane. I was already getting so excited! I did apologize ahead of time and told him I will fidget and need to get up. He was very understanding. On the plane, I ate, I read and I napped. We even landed early!
I should have known that the universe will come by to say bye though. Traffic was so bad around the airport that Uber directions took us on a tour of northern Virginia. But it was all good. I made it home!
So what now?
I don’t have any races scheduled. Maybe a fall marathon? I would like to start working on qualifying for Boston Marathon!