Big Sur 2009 - Big Blow!

A clear sky waiting for the start line gave me goose bumps in anticipation of the view we were going to have of the Big Sur coast once we made it through the first miles of redwood cedars.

But approaching Andrew Molera Park, I knew the cloud hanging at the edge of the ocean meant one thing - wind. And blow it did during the 24th presentation of the Big Sur International Marathon. No sweat hanging around on this body! I wore a cotton (yes, cotton) throw-away until Bixby Bridge because that wind kept me so cool. When I finally took it off, there wasn't a drop of sweat on it. It was a day when dehydration sneaks up on a person.

This year my intention was to enjoy every minute of the course. No wind could stop my enjoyment of the heart-aching beauty of the coast. Having been in the area over the Christmas holidays, I am more conscious of the incredible privilege of walking the highway free of motorized vehicles. If there is no wind, it is possible to hear waves tumbling on the beaches and sea lions calling loved ones. On this day, the wind blocked out all those sounds. Even the motivating beat of the Taiko drummers was blown downwind after a couple of hundred feet up Hurricane Point. As you can see here that didn't stop me from getting into the groove of the beat.

The fierce beauty of Big Sur always makes me cry at some point in the race – or maybe it's the pain of rounding the summit of "Hurri-pain Point". Yes, we were expecting that hurricane!

Just take a look at this view we enjoyed after rounding Hurricane Point. It's a sublime journey down to Bixby Bridge and a bittersweet reward to hear Michael Martinez playing "I Did it My Way" on the grand piano.

Incredibly there are still 8 miles of coast like this before we have to dig deep into our reserves to cover the Carmel Highlands hills.

I have no photo from the finish line because I had not a calorie of energy left to retrieve my camera from my waist belt. And, I was in a hurry to find friends who had finished ahead of me. After that, I can tell you the first priority are those frigid steps into the Pacific for long suffering and very tired feet.

I look foward to next year - the 25th anniversary of the BSIM. Won't you join me?

Lee

p.s. Congratulations to all walkers back in Oakville who rocked the Mercedes 10K Power Walk in awesome time. Check out the results back on our website.

Big Sur warm up

It's 10 degrees cooler in California than it is in Ontario (!) but we're still sooooo excited to be here for the Big Sur Marathon tomorrow.

You can see Vera here leading some of us through a post-walk walk stretch on the Carmel Beach.

Last night a few of us went to watch a special showing of Running the Sahara with guest Charlie Engel, who organized the expedition to run across the entire Sahara Desert with two other runners (including Candian Ray Zahab). At one point in the movie when one of the other two runners is considering dropping out of the race, Charlie suggests that he could go back home to play it safe and easy by running a marathon! And that's about how we feel after watching them slogging it without one day rest for 111 days through unimaginable heat, drought, injury, sand storms, exhaustion, and mental fatigue.

The hills of the Big Sur course are looking a whole lot easier!

Hand weight madness

It's spring and I see loads of enthusiastic walkers enjoying the weather and the company of friends. It's infectious. The more people we see outside, the more we want to be there too.

Crazy though, this spring I'm seeing more people walking carrying hand weights. The risk for injury at the shoulder joint becomes much higher when carrying these weights.

While adding some extra weight may be valuable for increasing bone density it would make more sense to wear that weight in a vest so that your posture remains good and your gait isn't challenged awkwardly.

If you are reading this and carry hand weights to increase a walking workout I urge you to ask yourself what you are wanting out of your walk. If your most important concern is getting your cardio system challenged, you would be much better off to walk as fast as you can, without the hand weights. Or, find some up hill segment of road to walk.

Pick up the hand weights after the cardio workout for some targeted strength training.

Compression socks

Runners World April issue has an article on them. The Globe and Mail recently had an article on them. Both with no great revelations. Everyone wearing them at races looks like I should recognize them from my Grade Three gym class. I'm keeping an open mind and may have to try wearing them during a race soon.

Report here if you have tried compression socks and come to any mind-blowing conclusions about their efficacy.

Walking Whidbey Island Half Marathon

It's been almost 2 weeks since Icompleted the Whidbey Island Half Marathon but the majestic beauty of the Olympic Mountains, as they could be seen from the course, are fresh in my mind. What a beautiful day for a race - as you can see from the images I have included here.

Whidbey Island is nestled in the protective grasp of Puget Sound, cradled by the Cascade Mountains of the U.S Pacific coast to the east and the Olympic Mountains that border the Olympic Peninsula near Seattle to the southwest. It's a bucolic island of fields and water - except for the airforce base. Oak Harbour, which owes much of its existence to the base, is where I found myself for the start of the race on a brisk Sunday morning a few weeks ago.

I ended up here on Whidbey Island for several reasons but one of those was because the race has featured a walking division for several years. As so often happens, my optimism for this walking division was ill-founded. Within seconds of the horn sounding for the walking start that left 5 minutes after the running start, several partipants were running down the road. Another 15 minutes into the race and I was catching up to more who were wearing the special walking bibs but who were clearly running and taking walk breaks.

Fortunately the course was one of the most beautiful I have ever walked. Rolling and challenging hills combined with stunning views of water, green fields, and glacier-topped mountains. There wasn't much in the way of crowd support but surounded by such natural landscape beauty, it wasn't missed.

Still, in the end I would have to give the race 2 out 4 WoW happy faces for walkers. I love that there is a walking division but I think it makes sense for the organizers to go that extra mile (pun alert!) to educate all participants that walking means walking. If a person plans to run any portion of the race, registration should be in the running category. I just can't believe that this would be difficult for organziers to reinforce through education on the website and on the registration forms.

Clearly this "walking division" was created to keep walkers out of the way of runners. The assumption of the organzers being that walkers are always slower and less committed to excellence. But organizers and participants alike need to understand that to walk an event does not mean to take it easy. With all the latest research showing that people need to exercise with their heart rate at the high end of their target heart rate in order to improve key fitness indicators such as resting metabolic rate, blood pressure, resting heart rate, bone density, and more, we need to be raising expectations on walking as workout. And creating a race environment that honors this workout is a logical expectation.