BIG SUR MARATHON - April 25, 2010 Two days after the April 19th Boston Marathon Lenore and I continued the adventure of our 10-day Boston2Big Sur Challenge by flying from Boston to San Francisco. This was a “frequent flyer” trip, and we were fortunate to be assigned our “first-ever” seats in the first class section of the airplane. It was a great experience to be pampered on this 3,000 mile non-stop flight. Waiting for us at the San Francisco airport were our daughter Jan Stensland and her husband Simon Patton of nearby Kensington, California. Jan had done such a good job as chauffeur and tour-guide for our 2008 Lake Tahoe Marathon weekend that we gladly accepted her offer to do the same for the 25th running of the Big Sur Marathon on Sunday, April 25, 2010. On Friday evening we arrived at the Comfort Inn in Marina, CA. The next morning we went to packet pickup at race headquarters in Monterey. The Expo was one of the best that I’ve seen. Many of the runners were wearing Boston Marathon shirts or ones for the Boston2Big Sur Challenge. There were 401 who had registered for the “2 marathons, 6 days, and 3,000 miles apart” challenge, and a special booth was there for us at the Expo. I checked in, showed the volunteers my Boston finishers medal and received my distinctive bib and a goodie bag. We had plenty of time to do the “tourist thing” before the 4:30 pasta dinner, so we chose to drive the course from the nearby Athletes Village finish area south along highway 1 for 26.2 miles to the starting area at Big Sur State Park. We returned on the Highway 1 scenic drive continuing through the picturesque town of Carmel onto the 17 Mile Drive. There we saw Monterey Pines, Monterey Cypress trees, beaches, rocky promontories at the edge of the ocean, golf courses and estates. Next came the buffet carbo-loading dinner back at the hotel in Monterey. Bill Capel, 61, of Wadesboro, North Carolina, joined us. He had traveled all the way across our great country to run his first marathon at Big Sur. He was attracted to this race by the information that he gathered about it. We were back at the Comfort Inn and settled in for an early, and short, night. Thousands of runners are transported in the dark from Monterey and Carmel to the starting area early on race morning. The alarm awakened me at 3:00 a.m., and by 3:30 a.m. Jan and I were in the car ready to go to my bus pickup area in Monterey. Bill Morton, 50, of Brighton, Colorado, joined us. He’s a 50 States Finisher who’s working on his “second time around.” At the staging area for the start in Big Sur State Park it was like a family gathering. Drawn together by yellow Marathon Maniac shirts were Jon and Sherry Mahoney from Vernon, British Columbia, Betsy Rogers and her husband Matt Hagen from Seattle, Barefoot Todd Byers from Long Beach, California, Ed Ettinghausen of Wildomar, California and myself. I had seen Janet Green of Courtenay, British Columbia, on Saturday. At 7:00 a.m. the race started on the closed, two-lane, asphalt Highway 1 with an easy downgrade for the first mile. This was good for a “warm-up” and made it easy for the field to spread out. The weather was great…..clear and comfortable with cooling winds and a maximum temperature of 63 degrees. The scenery was spectacular as we looked out at the bluffs sloping down to the surf at the ocean and up to a steep mountain ridge. I walked the many hills and ran the downhills to make up some of the time lost by walking so much. The longest and highest hill went to 560 feet at Hurricane Point twelve miles into the race. The only “flat” area was the picturesque Bixby Bridge at the halfway mark. The last few miles were in the suburbs of Carmel Heights and Carmel-by-the-Sea. After I went over the last hill, I could see the finish area in a tent village below. It was there that Lenore, Jan and a group of Marine volunteers were waiting for me. I finished with a time of 6:46:44, 3,442nd finisher of 3,442 overall, 1,942nd male and second 80-84M. It had been a good race. I’m glad that I was one of the 322 runners who finished the inaugural Boston2Big Sur Challenge and earned a finishers medal and jacket for the Challenge and a finishers medal and age group plaque for the marathon. Thank you, Dave McGillivray, Boston Race Director, and Wally Kastner, Big Sur Race Director, for making this happen. …………………………………………Written by Bob Dolphin PARTIAL RESULTS – BIG SUR MARATHON, April 25, 20102:26:09 Daniel Tapia, 23, Castroville, CA, Overall Winner2:27:39 Michael Wardian, 36, Arlington, VA, Second Overall
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