A few months ago, a friend invited me to be part of a five-person relay team to run the Big Sur Marathon and I immediately jumped at the opportunity. The Big Sur Marathon is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful courses in the country, and I thought that this would be a fun way to experience some of the breathtaking scenery.
Overall, this turned out to be accurate; I was able to enjoy some really nice views without having to submit myself to 26.2 miles of relentless hills. However, I did find myself relearning some of the lessons that I originally learned while participating in the California International Marathon Relay – that relays present a lot of logistical hurdles that can put a damper on the whole experience.
The Big Sur Relay Marathon experience began at 2:30 a.m. when my alarm went off. Because of the nature of the race’s layout (a one-way course north on isolated Highway 1), all of the runners have to be bussed out to their respective starts. The full marathoners and the first-leg relay runners have to catch a bus from Monterey to Big Sur that leaves at 4:00 a.m., with the others legs of the relay leaving progressively later. Since I was running the last 9.5 miles of the race, I was on the last bus, which left at about 6:00 a.m. That meant that after arriving with the first runners in our group, I had to stand around in the cold Monterey morning weather for a few hours while I waited for my bus. This was not a fun experience and I tried to distract myself by reading on the Kindle app on my phone; regrettably, the book I was reading at that moment in time was about a band of explorers fighting to stay alive on a tragic expedition to reach the North Pole, so I wasn’t necessarily feeling the warmth.
Eventually I got on the warm(er) bus and made my way out the Garrapata Creek Bridge, which was the start of the fourth leg of the relay. This was a particularly beautiful spot with great ocean views and a small series of trails leading to a bluff.
Overall, this turned out to be accurate; I was able to enjoy some really nice views without having to submit myself to 26.2 miles of relentless hills. However, I did find myself relearning some of the lessons that I originally learned while participating in the California International Marathon Relay – that relays present a lot of logistical hurdles that can put a damper on the whole experience.
The Big Sur Relay Marathon experience began at 2:30 a.m. when my alarm went off. Because of the nature of the race’s layout (a one-way course north on isolated Highway 1), all of the runners have to be bussed out to their respective starts. The full marathoners and the first-leg relay runners have to catch a bus from Monterey to Big Sur that leaves at 4:00 a.m., with the others legs of the relay leaving progressively later. Since I was running the last 9.5 miles of the race, I was on the last bus, which left at about 6:00 a.m. That meant that after arriving with the first runners in our group, I had to stand around in the cold Monterey morning weather for a few hours while I waited for my bus. This was not a fun experience and I tried to distract myself by reading on the Kindle app on my phone; regrettably, the book I was reading at that moment in time was about a band of explorers fighting to stay alive on a tragic expedition to reach the North Pole, so I wasn’t necessarily feeling the warmth.
Eventually I got on the warm(er) bus and made my way out the Garrapata Creek Bridge, which was the start of the fourth leg of the relay. This was a particularly beautiful spot with great ocean views and a small series of trails leading to a bluff.
This was my home for the next several hours. With the race starting at 6:00 a.m. and me 17 miles into the race, I had a few hours of waiting on my hand. I spent about two of them reading my book as I tried to stay warm on the buss, but I got to the end and still found myself with time to spare. That’s about when I started to get antsy. I started doing a few light warm-up runs on the trails leading out to the bluff to get my blood pumping and that did the trick for a bit.
Once I had done a few of those, there wasn’t much for me to do besides stand on the side of the road and wait for the third person on our team to cross the bridge and pass the torch to me. That got old real quick, so I basically ran back and forth across the bridge and snapped more than a few photos.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I saw my teammate (my mom) cross the bridge and we took off to head to the finish together. And this is where the real problem with relay races comes into play: when I do races, there’s a lot of early morning adrenaline, but in these relays, the adrenaline dies off and I have to somehow resuscitate it. As a result, I find that I have a hard time really giving my all and I don’t really do my best running. With this race, the long hours of waiting and the never-ending series of rolling hills wore me down pretty quickly. I was able to power through the first couple of miles, but I did a lot of hill walking towards the end.
When I crossed the finish line (4:44 for the team), I was exhausted. It was a fun and scenic race, but I’m going to go ahead and swear off relays for a while.
When I crossed the finish line (4:44 for the team), I was exhausted. It was a fun and scenic race, but I’m going to go ahead and swear off relays for a while.