Recap Bonanza. Part 1: Big Sur Marathon 4/28/2013

Where do I begin?

I love northern California, and this race gave me a full view of the reasons why running along the coast is just magical!!!

I landed in San Jose, rented a car and went straight to Santa Cruz, where my fellow ambassadors Elise and Meg live.  Elise was kind enough to let me stay at her house for the night before heading down to monterrey for the Expo, where I was to pick up my race bib and stay at the info booth for the San Francisco Marathon for a while performing some ambassadorial duties -answering questions, and overall, talking about how awesome the race is-.

Some of the Santa Cruz sights before dinner with my new friends!

 
 

The next morning, bright and early, I headed down to Monterrey, not before stopping by a local coffee shop for much needed caffeine for drive south.  Verve coffee was delicious!

 Foggy drive down reminded me that weather conditions in north cal change in a moments' notice!

Once at the expo, I headed to my "work station"... The San Francisco Marathon booth to share some SF love to all!

I was given my number... Lucky #3000 and I was ready to roll! :)

After my ambassador duties were done, I headed out for touristy stuff with my friend Steve (whom I used to tour with and had not seen in many years), his lady Kim and my fellow runner friend Heather, who was also running Big Sur.  We got some food, went to the Monterrey Aquarium (a must while you're there), Point Lobos, and walked around seeing the coolness of that town.

the view from the place we had lunch at... so pretty!

After all the sightseeing, Heather and I got some pre race dinner ( a bit late considering I had to wake up at at 2:45am to meet the shuttle bus at 4:30am), which was delicious!; and while we talked running and life, I drank a lot of iced tea and then... it was sleepy time before Go time!

in California they honor your GF requests, and the presentation is still great!
Pre race dinner! :)

RACE MORNING!!!!

Finally, after all the training since november, all the hills, track work, long runs... the day had arrived!

 as we made the slow ascent to the starting line, I was pretty glad I couldn't see the road I would be running... foggy & cool morning temperatures were great, and you could feel the energy in the air!
I got to meet my fellow ambassador Chris (pictured above) who was pacing a group (he's a speedy one!)

 Getting ready for the horn start! 3 waves, and I was in wave 2... Here's a selection of pictures from the race... I took about a million more, but the mile markers and some of the scenes just don't do it justice.. It is a magnificent race! a Bucket List item! pure beauty at every mile! and the mile markers were funny!

I had planned to have my tunes and earphones ready for the race and as we started I quickly realized that it wasn't a good idea to listen to music while there was so much sensory overload by the beauty of nature and the sounds of the wind and the ocean... so I ran the race sans music, and I didn't regret it!

 Getting to the halfway point! the brutality of the hills makes you humble! really! you train hard, and for this one you have to train harder! period!  But as you can see by my smile, I was having a blast (and hoping for a PR, which is rough in a course like this one!)

Listening to the Rocky tune across the bridge, courtesy of Mr. Michael at the grand piano, it was incredible!!!

 Because of my race strategy, I didn't really take many more pictures after mile 16, since I was going towards getting that extra gear engaged the last 10 miles (and the .2)... So the fruit lady, pictured here was at mile 25.... deliciously fresh strawberries... what a treat after so many sports beans!

Crossed the finish line with an official time of 4:48:22 which meant I beat my previous PR from the SF Marathon by 3 min 37 sec.  I was so happy!! I knew deep down I could have gone much faster, but I wanted to take it all in, and enjoy the views... This is a beautiful scenic race...impossible to ignore.

here's my official finish picture, for marathon number 4!!!!