Everything is bigger in America, right?:  bigger cars, bigger bellies and bigger pocket books!   Well, no not really but the Avenue of the Giants truly IS one of the validations to the myth: one of the American Icons of Big~ only this time we mean it.    If you wanted to, you could sit in your big car with your big belly and drive the entire length of the park and even drive right through the middle of an actual tree if that’s your fancy.   But if you are lucky enough to be a runner, you could wait for the first weekend in May, when traffic is closed for seven miles along the scenic route to run a marathon, half marathon or part of a relay traveling right through the heart of this old (and I mean really really old) growth grove of redwoods.   Maybe it was just the endorphins, but somewhere past mile three, just when the rush of the race start was wearing off and my caffiene high was coming to a close, the forest was so breathtakingly majestic and old and uniquely Californian, a rush of gratitude for being able to run this race at this time and this year filled me up like a Mama’s and Papa’s song (wait for the part when the girls to pop out of the bathtubs) and if I hadn’t been in such a hurry, I would have got down on my knees, and began to pray!   It’s official: I can run again!  My injury is in the rear view mirror.  yay!

The Ave has what it takes to make this half marathon girl happy:  misty cool start, flat fast course with continuous shade~ (I swear it seemed the course only sloped down when it had any elevation at all), and a cool wide river at the finish line to stick my feet in before slipping on the post race flip flops.  Ahhh!  now that feels nice. It didn’t hurt that I had another PR and added bonus, by it being a smaller race (around 1500), I was actually able to come in 6th in my age group.  Isn’t that crazy?  There is a silver lining to be over fifty after all.