A few years ago Ben and Carole took a video of the Big Sur International Marathon course. It has received such great attention that we decided to re-edit and re-master it. Please enjoy below! 

In honor of the latest race, I wanted to take the opportunity to interview Ben on his experience running in the Big Sur International Marathon in the 1990’s. Having ran cross country in highschool, I was pretty impressed by this. My longest run was 13 miles, and I was 14 at the time, so I loved hearing about Ben’s training. 

Q. How old were you when you raced?

It was 1993, so I would have been 46. 

Q. How difficult was the training and what was your regime? 

It was certainly difficult, but the enjoyment was the years of training leading up to the race. The training developed such a good habit and routine. I ran three miles a day every day, and then every other weekend I would do a long run increasing a mile every 2 weeks up to 24 miles. 

Q. What was the most challenging part of the race? 

The hardest part was the last 200 meters. There was nothing left in the tank!

Q. What was your first meal after the race? 

I actually didn’t eat for a while, I went straight to sleep!

Q. What else can you tell me about the process?

One of the most fun training sessions I had was a day where I ran from Carmel Valley Village into Carmel and then through 17 Mile Drive to Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach. It was about 24 miles. 

 

Here’s Ben on race day:

I also learned that about 10 years later Ben’s son Grant raced in the marathon, we’ll save that story for another time!