Expo Photos

Big Sur International Marathon (2 of 4) :

The purpose of the Expo at a Marathon is to enable the participants to collect their event shirts, goodie-back, bib and timing chip. Well, that's what they say. The real purpose is to make money for the event by selling floor space to stall holders.

However, there is often good entertainment at the Expo and BSIM offers some of the best. This year, Michelle and I attended talks by Dean Karnazes, Bart Yasso and Jeff Galloway.

Dean Karnazes is something else. He holds many bizarre records for endurance running. 350 miles without sleep! He also ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. And he has run coast-to-coast across the United States. Forest Gump! And he's a nice guy and great public speaker. His next project is to run 204 marathons in all 204 countries of the world in one year - maybe 2014.

Bart Yasso is a journalist with Runner's World and has run hundreds of marathons in all continents, climates and altitudes. He's another great speaker and always has something funny to say about every event.

Jeff Galloway is a retired Olympian and highly respected Coach. He's also very nice and has words of enthusiasm and encouragement for everybody. He advocates run walking. 5 years ago, I decided to run-walk BSIM and finished in 4:15 - a very good result considering I hadn't trained specially for the event. Penny said "you'd have finished 4:45 if you'd tried to run all the way." I'm sure she's right.

And while Michelle and I were listening to the talks, Ali and Jonas went to the swing park and had some fun together. We all met up for lunch in a nice sandwich bar beside the Convention Center in Monterey.

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