Marathons: Born to Run

Tens of thousands of Americans will hit the road this coming week.  Literally.  Not in their cars, but in their running shoes. 

Big Sur International Marathon Bixby BridgeOver 35,000 will run the Boston Marathon on Monday.  A mere 4500 have signed up for Sunday’s Big Sur International Marathon in California, but another 10,000 take part in auxiliary walk events along the Big Sur coast.  These two are perhaps the premier US marathons.  East Coast and West, the two events highlight some of the differences between our two coasts.

The East Coast is old and historic, looking back across the Atlantic to Europe.  The Boston Marathon is always held on Patriots Weekend, a huge historic celebration of the Battle of Lexington and Concord that opened the Revolutionary War in 1776. The race itself is the oldest marathon of the modern era, run each year since 1897, after the 1896 Olympics revived the race.   Boston is in the heavily populated northeast corridor, and the race goes through many populous suburbs and ends in downtown skyscrapered Boston.  This year a million people, double the usual, will watch and cheer along the route.

Bixby BridgeThe West is all about open space.  Its cities are newer, the population younger and more diverse. Looking west across the Pacific (hence the use of “International” in the name?), the Big Sur Marathon, consistently voted “Best Destination Marathon,” is a course completely coastal and rural, never more than a few hundred feet from the sea, with granite cliffs plunging to crashing waves. These marathoners hear the starting gun in tiny redwooded Big Sur and cross the finish line in quaint Carmel-By-the Sea.  Few family and fans make it down the closed-off highway to cheer on the runners.  It’s pretty quiet except the waves.  The race’s motto is “Running on the Rugged Edge of the Western World.”

I wrote last April about the Boston Marathon and about the Church of the Finish Line, Old South Church, and what it was like when two pressure cooker bombs went off at the finish line, killing 3 and horribly maiming over 250.  This year many ceremonies and stories are marking that anniversary, while the trial of the accused suspect, Chechen Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, proceeds even more slowly than some of the runners.

Security will be tight at both races, but there’s something about races and runners that defies any attempt at control or caution.  Runners run; it’s sort of crazy really, to run 26 miles.  There are marathon runners who have done 1000 marathons. One guy did 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days. 

Boston patriot Paul Revere was not just a hero of the war; he was one of the first crazy runners.  (Well actually, rider – allow me some artistic license here.)  I wonder if Boston kids still memorize (as I had to) “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem about that famous warning ride the night before that battle, which begins:

“Twas the 18^th of April in ‘75
And hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his men, “If the British march,
By land or sea from the town tonight,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the Old North Church as a signal light.
One if by land and two if by sea
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm
For the country folk to be up and to arm…”

A pianist playing at the end of the Bixby BridgeI am not a marathoner, but I have completed both the 12 mile and 21 mile walks that are part of the Big Sur race events.  I’ve never been to the Boston Marathon, but I’m sure it’s fun and inspiring and filled with wild and crazy people.

But I tend to think another feature of the West Coast is a wilder and more crazy spirit than those East Coasters.

Some of my favorite moments along the Big Sur Marathon route are:

• As you cross historic Bixby Bridge, seeing and hearing the tuxedo-clad guy at the grand piano.  (He mostly plays the theme from Chariots of Fire, over and over.)
• The Taiko drummers whose insistent beat helps power you up the killer hill to Hurricane Point.
• The sexy and raunchy Big Sur Native belly dancers and their band at mile 24 who cheer you on that last tiring stretch.
• The residents of Carmel Highlands who hand out fresh strawberries as you pass through their little town.
• The grey whales that sometimes surface and give you an encouraging smelly blow as you both move north in parallel.
• Hearing your name and your time called as you cross the finish line.

Both marathons always take place in April, but this year they are only 6 days apart, Monday and Sunday.  400 folks have signed up to run both, in what’s called the B2B.  And 400 is the limit; many more wanted to, especially this year, to show support for Boston, and their motto, “Boston Strong.”  These runners show that the coasts aren’t really that different, that many of us are bi-coastal, and that one of the best things about marathons is that there is no loneliness of the long distance runner.  We all run together.

Copyright © 2014 Deborah Streeter