So Saturday morning we got up, found some breakfast, and hooked up with our friends Karl and Brandi at the race registration location. Went with them to our other friend Ashley's mom's house, which seems to serve as home base for this whole crew each year. From there we all trooped back to Trinidad, where we took a bus to the start line - about 45 minutes early. Waited around in the cold, and eventually started the race. I did the 8 3/4 mile run, Mich, Brandi and Karl (who recently had surgery) did the 3 mile walk. Karl looked like he wanted to do the run, but it wasn't a good idea... I had a good run - it's always kind of weird when you don't know the course at all, but I gave myself a goal of 1:10 and finished in 1:08. Fun course, winding up and down through big trees for the first 5 or so miles, then a river crossing and a couple miles on the beach to finish. Really, a river crossing - about 50 feet across, and just above my knees. Some people took shoes off and ran barefoot, some put them back on, some just slogged on with wet shoes. On the advice of Karl, I put mine back on, and it seemed to work for me. I got to the finish line about 10 minutes before Karl, Brandi and Mich, came to see the rest of us finish. Big bonfire there, and some crazy marching band from Humboldt State that decided to march out into the ocean. Crazy. Spent the afternoon in and out of the hot tub at Ashley's mom's house, eating thousands of calories of wonderful lasagna and goodies and emptying numerous bottles of champagne. Then Karl and Brandi led us to Karl's parents house, where we had some excellent crab the had just purchased from the boats that afternoon. Yum. I think I ate about 10,000 calories. Fell asleep about 9:15, probably needed to digest. VERY nice day.
4 comments:
Man, I am so jealous! This looks like an awesome and beautiful race, even if it was overcast. Running through the trees, in the water, on the beach- and lots of extra O2 for some added nrg. What was the temp? Was the river water cold, or rejuvenating after running 5 miles? You know, if you left your shoes off when running in the sand, you could have had the added bonus of a nice exfoliation for smoothy smooth feet (and super sore calf muscles from the extra work it takes to run in the sand without shoes on- and you probably wouldn't have finished 2 minutes faster than your goal. But hey! I'm always up for a bit of a pedicure!). So much fun! And still way jealous.
-A
I meant to ask- how many participate in this race every year? From their website they said it is nationally known, so I was just curious.
-A
And!!! How could I forget the marching band in the ocean?! That is just so cool! I never got to do any crazy marching- I'll have to tow my trumpet to the ocean with me one day to fix that... Did they play while in the water, or just take a detour from wherever they were going in the first place? Again, jealous!!!
Yeah, it was beautiful. Started overcast, but cleared up. Stayed cold, though - high of maybe 50. The river was chilly, but not too bad - thinking of other things at that point. Decided to wear the shoes after the river because of the barefoot pounding on cold, hard sand - didn't want the soreness after. I don't know how many were there - maybe 400? I asked but apparently I asked the wrong person. And yes, the band played as they marched into the water. I think they were somehow pharmaceutically enhanced...
Post a Comment