Yes, It Has Been A While

Honestly, those last two marathons (April and May with 12 days in between) wore me out.

I took the better part of two weeks off from running, and I took an even longer time (four weeks) off from blogging. Sorry to those of you who are interested in following my adventure. I promise to do a better job for the rest of the year.

In addition to being weary from marathons #4 and #5, the last four weeks are among the busiest for me at work. As much fun as blogging has become for me, I have to work.

The big news on the marathon front is a change to the schedule. Originally, I planned to run my June event in the Estes Park Marathon in Colorado. While I will still be traveling to Colorado in a couple of weeks, I have added a trip to California this weekend. As is my habit when traveling, I typically check marathonguide.com to see if there is a race near my destination. My trip will take me to San Francisco and I found a marathon about 100 miles south of San Francisco near Santa Cruz.

Trivia Question: What is the nickname of the University of California-Santa Cruz athletics teams?

Saturday, I'll be running the Forest of Nisene Marks Marathon. The marathon is run through the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park (guess you figured out the reason for the marathon's name).

The park's website includes this information: This park is on land that was clear-cut during a forty-year logging frenzy (1883-1923). When the loggers left the Aptos Canyon, the forest began to heal itself and now the scars grow fainter with each passing year. The Forest of Nisene marks is a monument to forest regeneration and the future - it is a forest in the state of becoming. The park offers rugged semi-wilderness, rising from sea level to steep coastal mountains of more than 2,600 feet. Once the site of logging operations until the 1920s, visitors can still find evidence of logging operations, mill sites and trestles in the park. The land was donated to the state by the Marks family in 1963.

The schedule for the weekend is to fly out to California on Friday, run the marathon Saturday morning, Saturday evening I have the privilege of representing the SEC at a dinner honoring retiring Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen, followed by a departure on the red eye with an 8:30 a.m. arrival back in Birmingham on Sunday morning.

The adventure continues!

Oh, and the trivia answer: The UC-Santa Cruz athletics teams are known as the Banana Slugs.