Skip to main content

Here are 2 things.

Yesterday evening part of the Pacific Coast Highway collapsed into the ocean near Big Sur.


Word on the street is, the Big Sur Marathon course may be altered into an out and back course, with the turnaround just before the Bixby Bridge. The online reaction to this news can be summed up in the following sentiments:
Hey, will there still be a race?
I'm not running if it's not the original course!
Can I get your entry if you're not going to run?
Hey, let's calm down, the race organizers can't control NATURE.
One year, El Nino made us change the course too.
I'm coming all the way from Timbuktu for this, can you just, like, build a bridge or something?

The race isn't until May 1st, so I'm kind of in the wait and see rather than be disappointed now category. This is my first Big Sur, so I'm pulling for a fix before then, although there is still that matter of now knowing I'm running for hours along a road that has been known to collapse into the ocean. 


Where do you fall on the reaction spectrum to race changes/cancellations...? And is a race still a race if it's not the original course? Will I have to say I ran the Big Sur Marathon BUT...we had to turnaround halfway to Big Sur? yeesh.


And the second thing is....Bay to Breakers sold out today. 50,000 full. Costumes, nudity, and debauchery through the streets of San Francisco. I'm in.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Year's One Day 12 Hour (Uh, 7 Hour) Race Report

Here's the idea: You pay actual money to run around in a circle for either 6, 12, or 24 hours. This is how you choose to spend your New Year's Eve.  That's it. That's the course. Just keep turning right until midnight.  Each time you complete a lap, you pass under the finish arch, that is never actually the finish line, and over a timing mat that tracks the number of laps you've done and displays it on a screen. This should actually say, "KEEP GOING FOR MORE HOURS" You're looking at the same people lap after lap. It's the Golden Gate Bridge over and over again. You're not actually getting anywhere.  What is the point of what we are doing. That question is exactly why I love this race.  Here are hundreds of people, lap after lap, living entirely inside their own heads for hours and hours, each with a different answer to that question.  Last year I ran because I just wanted to find out if I could do it. I wan...

American River 50 2014: There can be no other title except MY FIRST 50 MILE RACE REPORT

This is a big deal. Without fail, there is somebody at every ultra I've run that I hear say, Oh, I'm not really trying for anything today, I'm just using this as a training run for my self supported run across Canada next month. I'll probably just cartwheel the whole thing.   I heard this type of exchange on the bus on the way to the start. "It's only a 50 miler, so the heat shouldn't even be an issue." It's a good thing it was dark... The "it's only a 50 miler" comment snapped me out of the anxious mind chatter and got me refocused. The few weeks leading up to the race, any time it came up, GeNene would say to me, "This is a big deal." Then I started saying it, and understanding what it really meant. This is something that I used to talk about doing "someday". It seemed really far off. I believed I could do it, but it would happen to some distant future version of me. "This is a big deal" m...

Big Sur Marathon 2012, Doing it right.

Saturday afternoon, @HalfMarathons tweeted this photo with the caption: Wind's gonna be strong tomorrow at the Big Sur Marathon. It blew down this port-a-potty already out on the course.  I don't know what's worse, the thought of wind that strong during the marathon, or the thought of being in that port-a-potty.  The weather in Monterey was beautiful Saturday. After the Expo, where Bart Yasso was hanging out at the Runner's World booth, and Dean Karnazes was giving a talk, we had lunch and walked the wharf. There were lots of commercial fishing boats docked along the pier to ogle and fish markets down at the end. Walking back toward the beach I heard from below a frantic "Stop paddling! Stop paddling!" I would say, just don't make eye contact and throw it in reverse.  The rest of the afternoon/evening was spent relaxing, eating, and preparing for the 3am wake up call to catch the bus. I did  Big Sur last year , but if you remember, part of...