60. Super Bowl Sunday Tradition: Surf City Style

The Super Bowl had its 44th meeting February 7, 2010.  Over all of those many years, no doubt many families, groups of friends, clubs, fantasy football leagues...you name it...have built treasured traditions for enjoying this day of revelry.

Chances are you may have read "Surf City" and thought the tradition might be something like say, I don't know, surfing.  Good guess, but no.


What I am referring to is Huntington Beach's Surf City USA Marathon.  For years this marathon has been scheduled the same day as Super Bowl Sunday.  For the 20,000 participants (plus volunteers, friends, family and cheering onlookers) of the sold out Surf City USA Marathon 2010 part of their Super Bowl Sunday tradition meant an early wake up call and a trek to the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) by Main Street (also the intersection for the Huntington Beach Pier) to get ready to walk or run their chosen event; 5K, 1/2 marathon, full marathon.  For those who don't recall, the 5K is about 3.2 miles.  The 1/2 marathon is about 13.1 miles with the full marathon clocking in at 26.2 miles.

Thanks to my sister, Patty, who has been running marathons for years now; the Surf City USA Marathon has become a Super Bowl Sunday tradition for some of my family.  She is the only one who runs the full marathon.  This is the first year my brother, Frank, has run the 1/2 marathon.  This is the third year my mommy has walked the 5K, every year clocking a little better time than the year before.  Other family members also participated in the 5K. Since many of them still live in Minnesota this event is also a great excuse to enjoy some warmer weather.

Let me tell you, you have to get up pretty early in the morning for this event.  Full marathoners' start was at 6:30 AM.  5K started twenty minutes later.  If any of you recall, I am not the most thrilled about getting up early in the morning.  I intended to be at the finish line early enough to film my mommy crossing it.  Somehow I miscalculated, especially drive time to Huntington Beach.

I like to feel like I live in the center of the Los Angeles metropolitan area being barely four miles southwest of LAX.  Huntington Beach is in Orange County and about 35 miles away.  Sadly by the time I reached the finish line it was a few minutes after 8 am.  I missed all of my family who participated in the 5K crossing the finish line. If you watch the overview video of the marathon and Surf City USA I include with this blog post, you may wonder if I had been throwing back a few cocktails.  I blame it on not being used to motivating so early in the morning.

I wish I could use too early in the morning as my excuse for missing filming my brother crossing the finish line.  I was attempting to save camera battery and had calculated he might not cross the finish line for at least another ten minutes.  Ooooop.  There he is.  Crossing.  The photo above was the quickest I could get my camera to film anything.  Congrats, Frank!  Truth is this was only his second half marathon. I figured it would take him longer, especially considering how much liquid fun he had the day before.  

Somehow I seemed to have missed my sister crossing the finish line, as well.  Actually, I'm convinced I filmed it.  It's just I filmed from the 1/2 marathon side of the finish line in order to have the Huntington Beach Pier and ocean visible.  Less than 2,400 of the participants ran the full marathon.  Of the remaining 18,000, a lot of them were 1/2 marathoners crossing the finish line at three, four, five, ten at a time.

 

While I was a little sad about seeming to have let down my entire family in a photographic way, I was psyched to film the female winners of the half and full marathon and the male winner of the full marathon.  Sorry to the male winner of the half marathon.  Click here, to see the marathon results.  I must have dozed off for a moment.  (that's my official story)  Those who finish the event receive a medal shaped like a surf board.

Huntington Beach's Surf City USA marathon used to be named the Pacific Shoreline Marathon.  Huntington Beach wasn't always known as Surf City USA either.  You may have heard of the "Surf City" song.  It was the first surf song to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963.  If you are too young to remember, you may have thought "Surf City" is a Beach Boys song.  You'd be wrong; but you would also be right.  Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys gave the song to Jan Berry and Dean Torrance of Jan and Dean.  It is Dean Torrance who is credited with convincing elected officials to nickname Huntington Beach as Surf City USA.

Huntington Beach is also known for its 8.5 miles of uninterrupted beaches and consistent waves making it excellent for surfers.  The Huntington Beach Pier, which begins at the end of Main Street at the PCH, is one of the longest in California.  At the end of the pier is a two-level Ruby's Diner.  My camera did run out of battery while on the pier before reaching Ruby's.  This cinched my decision to eat there.  I like their food, but they also had an outlet so I could charge my camera battery.

This ended up being quite fortuitous.  As I sat down in my booth on the upper of the two levels at Ruby's, out the window for my viewing pleasure were about ten or so dolphins swimming, jumping waves and having a grand ole time.  I didn't get to film them, but the sight of them playing is forever etched in my memory.

I was a little surprised to have no wait at Ruby's.  Then I decided that if I had just ran three, thirteen or twenty-six miles, the last thing I might wish to do is walk another 1800 feet to reach my food destination.

The first few blocks of Main Street in Huntington Beach are a great place to shop for souvenirs or find a fun venue to enjoy a bite to eat.  There is a Surfing Museum about a block north of Main Street at 411 Olive Avenue.

All in all there is much to do, see and enjoy when you visit the Huntington Beach Pier area, whether it is your Super Bowl Sunday tradition or any other day of the year.

I dedicate this blog post to all the finishers of this year's Surf City USA Marathon.  Congratulations!