According to the Coastal website, this would be approximately 4000 ft of elevation gain. I have run Coastal races before and have always liked them. They are in gorgeous places, the courses are varying, the snacks are great and the staff, volunteers and other runners are all very friendly. The usual players were in attendance: Broski and my friend TJ, who is one of my long run buddies but hasn't really done a lot of trail running. TJ and I ran the 30k and Broski ran the half.
The race started here, at Rodeo Beach:
It was a nice clear and crisp day and the course, as you can see from the above map, started off by going straight uphill. And then straight down to the aid station. And then straight up. That's the thing about these trail races; it is very uncommon to have many flat areas. This one was no different.
The cool thing about the course is that it goes through scrubby coastal areas, and then through Eucalyptus groves and then through open fields. There are views of the other hills, of the bay, the ocean, the city and the Golden Gate bridge. The entire time there is a nice fresh, cooling sea breeze. It was great. TJ and I basically chatted the entire time, just like we do on our long runs, and the run went by in a flash. At the end we ran it out although I have to admit, the quads were a bit tired.
We finished in 3:11:23. We got number 22 and 23 out of 100 runners for the 30k. Broski got 2:08, which was almost as good as his FLAT half marathon PR!! He is much faster without me (last time we got around a 2:30). He got #57 out of 232! He said he only walked once or twice. Go Broski!
All in all it was a great run on a beautiful day and I would return to THAT scene of the crime again in a heartbeat.
What did you do on Sunday? Have you ever run a race with a friend? Do you like running hills?
