Big Sur marathon tour videos viewable above are perhaps the best way to get a sense of what it must be like to complete the Big Sur International Marathon.

The Big Sur marathon is considered by many to be one of the top three destination marathons in the United States.

The Big Sur marathon has a six-hour time limit because staging it requires shutting down part of California’s Pacific Coast Highway, one of the most scenic highways in the United States and also known as California State Route 1.

The Big Sur marathon tour videos take you almost mile by mile through the 26.2 miles from start to finish.

Combining an across-the-course interview with a local Californian, whose love of the Big Sur International Marathon is quite evident, with footage from the actual marathon results in three sequential Big Sur marathon tour videos that give you a strong sense of challenges of the Big Sur International Marathon.

• Part 1, a 4:50 video clip, takes you from the wooded start line to the iconic Point Sur Lighthouse.
• Part 2, a 6:59 video clip, takes you from the Point Sur Lighthouse to Hurricane Point and on to Garrapata.
• Part 3, a 4:27 video clip, takes you from Garrapata to the much-anticipated finish line.

Part 2 of the Big Sur marathon tour videos plays automatically after Part 1, and Part 3 plays automatically after Part 2.

Total viewing time, including short clips from a sponsor, is under seventeen minutes.

Hosted by Tom Rolander, local to the area, the videos are filled with tips about how to complete the marathon.

Perhaps more important, Mr. Rolander makes recommendations about how to enjoy the Big Sur International Marathon.

You know within the first minute of watching Part 1 that he dearly loves this marathon.

So the three parts give you a personal, loving perspective that is like a sales pitch — the right kind of sales pitch because it is filled with passion, sincerity, and love for what is being pitched.

What are your favorite marathon videos? Please leave a comment here. Thanks!

A marathoner often hears this advice:

Run your own race!

I blogged about the same advice for any marathoner after I completed the 2009 Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Marathon.

I had trained for most of the season leading up to that race by using the “1:1″ form of micro-level pacing. But I ran the first 15 kilometers (some 9.3 miles) without walking. And this mistake of not “running my own race” hurt my chip-time tremendously.

In summary: I ran too much of the race because I did not run my own race!

Last Saturday morning, as a four-time marathoner in preparation for my fifth one, I had a 21.6-mile route to cover.

Because I started the marathoner training session with walkers but not runners and wanted some “conversational company” starting at 5 in the morning, I ended up walking the first 13.4 miles with a marathoner before I switched to the 1:1 method.

• I was not surprised that my total time was much longer than what it would have been with nothing but the 1:1 method.
• I was surprised — at least in the first several hours afterward — that I developed a back ache from that session, given that I had not gotten a similar back ache from an 18-miler a few Saturdays earlier.

But then I thought about it some more and realized that I have trained my “running muscles” and “walking muscles” to alternately be engaged every other minute.

I know: This is not scientific, but you get the idea. I have trained for several months to constantly mix my running and walking.

So walking the first 13.4 miles last Saturday in my 21.6-miler was analogous to running the first 9.3 miles in the aforementioned marathon.

And this leads me to a corollary piece of advice to any marathoner to “Run your own race!”:

Run your own training route!

Have you had a similar experience? Please leave a comment here. Thanks!

I just learned from FIDO FIT Houston about another dog-friendly race:

Wizard of Pawz

So I just added a row for it in my “Dog-Friendly Races for Runners and Walkers” special report.

The 29th running occurs this year on March 28 in Houston, Texas.

Anyone who already has the “Dog-Friendly Races” report and has stayed on the email list for it has already gotten the latest version of the report — automatically!

Have I overlooked a dog-friendly race? Please leave a comment here. Thanks!

I got interesting news today from Houston Marathon Committee, Inc.

Houston, Texas, has been awarded the 2012 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, a first for a single city to host both Trial races, beating out Boston and New York!

What this means is that the top male and female U.S. marathon runners will be competing in Houston to represent the USA at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England.

Houston has a relatively flat, fast course and is where Ryan Hall became, in 2007, the U.S. Half Marathon Record Holder with a time of 59:43.

The 2012 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials will be held in Houston on the morning of January 14, 2012, a day prior to the 40th-anniversary run of the Houston Marathon, with the women’s event expected to start before the men’s event.

What do you think about this news? Given that Houston in January, 2010, hosted the 2010 USA Half Marathon Championships, are you even surprised that Houston got this men’s/women’s double honor for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials?

Please leave a comment here. Thanks!

Well, well. Sometimes the size of a half-marathon medal is smaller than the size of a full-marathon medal at the same weekend event.

Take, for instance, the “his & hers” medals that I got with my wife last Sunday at the 2010 Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Houston Half Marathon, respectively:

Completing either distance is quite an accomplishment. So I tip my cap to anyone who completes a marathon or half marathon.

And I blogged last year with a somewhat tongue-in-cheek question about whether the size of a half-marathon medal ought to match the size of a full-marathon medal.

Some readers took offense.

But Chevron and Aramco — or the weekend’s organizers — apparently decided that the “full” medal should be larger than the “half” medal for last Sunday’s two events.

So there you go. Get over it. Your accomplishment, everything leading up to your accomplishment, and what you take away from it are what matters, not the size of the associated medal.

Unless you are in it for the bling …

In which case I recommend that you check out the Texas Marathon, which once again had a hot-plate of a medal this year.

How about you? Do you prefer to race for bling, for small tokens, or for self-satisfaction? Please leave a comment here. Thanks!

I completed the 2010 Chevron Houston Marathon a couple of days ago, and the experience led me to this blog-post title. It was my fourth marathon (my third in Houston).

I began the race with a specific goal:

• Complete it at or under 4:50:00.

But I ended the race with a different result:

• I completed it in 5:14:18.

So my average pace on Sunday was almost a minute/mile slower than what I wanted.

Don’t get me wrong. I had two “fall-back” goals:

• Complete it under 5:00:00. (Ah, to break five hours!)
• Complete it under 5:10:30, my PR from the 2009 Chevron Houston Marathon.

Other than the 3:38 final chip-time difference between 2009 and 2010, the intermediate chip-times are eerily similar:

• 10K:
  • 1:08:55 in 2009
  • 1:08:54 in 2010
• Half:
  • 2:23:26 in 2009
  • 2:24:07 in 2010
• 30K:
  • 3:28:59 in 2009
  • 3:29:56  in 2010

But check this out: I used different techniques in 2009 versus 2010!

I trained for the 2009 race by mostly walking with some running interspersed. But I raced in that event by getting caught up with the crowd and running the first ten or so miles at a relatively fast pace for me before switching to an unpredictable mixture of running and walking.

In contrast, I trained for the 2010 race initially with the 5:1 method and soon thereafter with the 1:1 method. And I raced in the 2010 event by ignoring the crowd and using the 1:1 method until around mile 22 or so, at which point it became more like the 1:2 method — with a minute of stilted running followed by two minutes of walking.

I had three high hopes for the 2010 Houston Marathon — with the 4:50:00 target, with the sub-five-hour target, and with the new-PR target — but not hitting any of those targets let my humility meet my marathon results on Sunday.

I came away from the 2010 event with some reinforced beliefs:

• Micro-level pacing prevents injuries.
  • I developed severe knee pain around mile 22 in the 2009 race, in which I did NOT use micro-level pacing. In contrast, other than an overall soreness throughout my legs and feet, I had no pain in the 2010 race, throughout which I used micro-level pacing. While it is true that each of these races is “a sample of size one” (It is impossible to duplicate every environmental variable across races.), the fact that the knee pain never came back with micro-level pacing employed throughout my pre-2010-race training season and in the 2010 race  strengthens my belief that this technique prevents injuries.
• Running one’s own race pays off.
  • I wrote a blog post about this two months ago, after learning this lesson the hard way at the 2009 Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Marathon. I ran my own race two days ago, and it paid off with a chip-time very close to my marathon PR.
• Racing down the middle of the road is the best way to go.
  • I wrote an article at EzineArticles.com last week about the top ten reasons to race down the middle of the road (unless you are an elite runner with nobody around you). I then practiced on Sunday what I preached in that article. And it paid off in many ways, including a stronger sense of control — and therefore less stress — throughout the marathon.

But I also came away from the 2010 Chevron Houston Marathon with some additional, “candidate” beliefs:

• One should take seriously any indirect offers for help.
  • I got accustomed to training without a side-by-side buddy when I switched from the 5:1 method to the 1:1 method in the 5:1 training group that was training for this marathon. So, when one of my training group’s 5:1′ers passed me with another racer at mile 22 on Sunday and asked whether I was okay (My struggling was apparently obvious to her!), I told her that I was fine, and she and her buddy “sped” ahead. Now I realize that her question was actually an indirect offer for help … and that I could have joined her and her buddy for the final four-plus miles to finish with a much better chip-time than what I got on my own. Not that I would necessarily be able to stick with them for that entire distance, mind you. But at least I could have given it a good try. So you may call me “slow” in terms of coming to this realization. But now I know, and I will not turn away indirect offers for help in future road races!
• Improving one’s flexibility will improve one’s endurance.
  • I truly believe that my increasing stiffness in the final several miles of Sunday’s race was my undoing in terms of meeting any of my targets. I also believe that that stiffness came from insufficient flexibility going into that race. And I believe that the insufficient flexibility is my own fault: I simply did not stretch as much as or as frequently as I should have throughout the training season! Lesson learned. Now comes the challenging part: incorporating flexibility exercises into my daily routine. Stay tuned: After I have thoroughly investigated flexibility training and found what works, I will put my research in a special report.
• Focusing on a negative split will cut one’s chip-time.
  • Beyond monitoring my GPS unit for running and walking paces in each minute of the 1:1 method, I listened for called-out paces from volunteers at various mile markers along the marathon course on Sunday. And those paces slowly but surely dropped in the first half of the marathon — from something like 11:50/mile to something like 11:05/mile. But eventually — in the second half of the marathon — I was back to hearing called-out paces around 11:50/mile and higher. Talk about depressing! So I would have had a negative split if I were running a half marathon, but I got a positive split for the full marathon, and THAT is the split that mattered. I had never mastered the negative split during the training season leading up to this race. But now I more strongly appreciate its psychological value, so I must learn more about how to train to achieve it in races. Stay tuned for this one, too: After I have thoroughly investigated negative splits, I will write about them in a special report.

There you have it: six road-racing beliefs that may serve you well.

What road-racing beliefs have served you well? Please comment here. Thanks!

Big Sur International Marathon organizers hold several other races the same day as this famous marathon:

• 21-Miler
• 10.6-Miler
• 9-Miler
• 5K
• 3K

Until today, my “Pace Tables for Runners and Walkers” special report covered only these five, popular distances:

• 50K
• Marathon
• Half Marathon
• 10K
• 5K

Starting today, my “Pace Tables” report is “Big Sur”-ready!

That is, I have added pace tables for the less-popular 10-mile distance plus the unusual, Big Sur distances:

• 21 Miles
• 10.6 Miles
• 10 Miles
• 9 Miles
• 3K

As with the original report, the new report covers flat-out running or walking as well as hundreds of combinations of running and walking paces for anyone who uses micro-level pacing:

• 5:1 method
• 4:1 method
• 3:1 method
• 2:1 method
• 1:1 method

Go here to get the new, “Big Sur”-ready report. (It’s free.)

I will be in the Big Sur International Marathon on April 25, 2010, and my dear wife will be in the 10.6-Miler. If you will be in Big Sur on that date for ANY race, then please let me know. It would be great to see you there!

And, if you have another race distance that you would like to see covered in a future version of the “Pace Tables” report, then please leave a comment here. Thanks, and Happy Racing!