"We'd have all made great Republicans" -- Final End

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Date Posted: 23:16:07 11/19/03 Wed
Author: Drummond
Subject: "We'd have all made great Republicans"

What was supposed to be a 10k, or about 6 miles turned into an 8 or 9 mile
run this Saturday. The race took place at Limantour Beach at Pt. Reyes in
West Marin County. It's way out in the middle of nowhere, peoplewise, in
a gorgeous setting. We run the first leg on the beach (probably harder
than the rest of the race put together) then onto a trail where we run
parallel to the beach until a point where we move inland through a valley
then double back through some pretty dramatic scenery, made more dramatic
on Saturday due to a major storm that was breaking up and letting sun and
blue sky peak through over the ocean.
Being national parkland, the regs don't allow the race organizers to put
signs up on the trails. On the way to the first turnaround, a group of
about 40 to 50 people ahead of me took the wrong turn at a fork.
Apparently, some guy had gone the right way, and doubled back thinking
he'd taken the wrong way, and told the crowd that the other trail was the
right way for the 10k, and that the right trail was for the 5k and the
half marathon (which really makes no sense on its face). So everyone
started to file off onto the wrong trail, and by the time I got there,
nobody was going to or coming from the right way, and like the lemming I
followed the crowd.

We had been told that the course was "relatively flat" involving a
"gradual" 150 foot climb to the main turnaround. But all of the sudden we
were scaling a very steep trail, and it seemed like we'd gone much higher
than 150 feet. I was thinking I was pretty buff as other runners started
to stop on the hill, when they were apparently stopping to ask "What the
fuck??" A few minutes later the front of the group started running back,
shouting "We think we're on the wrong path!" We expressed a collective
groan as one woman laughed and said, "Well, we'd all make great
Republicans."

Yeah, Marin County is very liberal. It's where John Walker-Lind was
raised, and you know how liberal upbringings lead children to
fundamentalist Islam. Most of the runners actually have to drive through
his hometown of Fairfax to get to Pt. Reyes.

However, Pt. Reyes itself is a monument to liberalism. Several decades
ago, developers wanted to turn the place into another Carmel Valley. They
wanted to develop most of west Marin, and in fact plans had been drawn up.
It took some very vehement opposition, and some very creative legislation
from Sal Burton and others to lock the area into parkland by designating a
large portion of it wilderness land, creating a protective bubble. I
remember there was another push in the late 80s to develop the eastern
shore of Tamales Bay, which generated dramatic local opposition. Before
the developers stormed out in a huff, they asked the crowd, "Do you really
want this place to remain a podunk nothing little community?" It
generated laughter, and one woman was quoted in the local paper "If we
wanted to live in South Lake Tahoe, we'd move there." Meanwhile, the Bear
Valley Trail is the most used National Park trail in the country, and the
rest of the park is just striking. I'm glad there's one little corner of
the California coast that hasn't been ruined by idiocy.

We probably added about 2 miles to our run, much of it uphill. Definitely
got the workout.

Then when we got back to the main trail, everybody else turned back
towards the starting point, but I wanted my time to count even if it's
going to look like I was physically injured when really I was just
braindead. At least I got to see two white elk on my lonely way to the
first turnaround.

I did manage to pass the walkers before the finish line anyway. At least
I won't have much trouble beating my score next year.

One woman said she'd never come back to the race ("Run" actually. Park
regs don't allow them to call it a "race."). She got lost twice!

Apparently, the race organizers could be fined $5000 since they didn't
have a permit for that other trail, but it seems unfair to me to deny the
organizers the ability to direct the race with adequate markings and then
punish them for that inability. They will probably have to solicit more
volunteers in the future.

�One of the wrongs I did in my life was that I fired this guy because he was too slow with them pedals, and come to find out ten or twelve years later it was Jimi Hendrix. You can�t win em all.�

-Ike Turner

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