So while battling the wind once again this morning on a 10-miler, I got to thinking whether the California International Marathon has ever been marred by gusty winds.
Since I've been in town -- 2005 -- the weather has been ideal each race day. Cool, yes. A little fog, certainly. A slight breeze, occasionally. Like I said, fine conditions.
But the bimonthly magazine, Marathon & Beyond, this month has a feature on the CIM that details a cautionary tale about the 1987 race that, to quote the magazine, featured weather that was "atrocious, horrible, beastly, nearly apocalyptic, the stuff of legend."
How bad was it?
Here's how Mark Conover, a former U.S. Olympic marathon, describes that race (he finished third in '87) in the magazine article: "When I woke up race morning I ... hoped it wouldn't start pouring. I wore ... a singlet and shorts and the wind was so bad that ... I watched it uproot a tree and topple it on top of a car. I also watched it rip the singlet off eventual winner Peter Maher as I ran along with him. It looked like a plastic bag flying in the wind as it went off in the distance."
Yikes. Let's hope there's no sequel on Dec. 6.
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