Challenging hills, paired with stunning views of both the Stinson Beach coastline and the immense, dramatic trees and landscapes of Muir Woods National Monument await runners at the Stinson Beach Half Marathon and 7-Mile run, which is limited to 300 entrants for all three races.
(The Stinson Beach Marathon & Half Marathon course is identical to the route for the Muir Woods Half Marathon, which takes place in April each year.)
Run by Enviro-Sports, a Stinson Beach, Calif.-based race management company that stages events just like this one all around the San Francisco Bay Area and around Northern California, the Stinson Beach race saw just over 250 runners cross the finish line at the 2014 race, with 129 finishers in the half marathon alone.
Once they leave the starting line in Stinson Beach Park just off Marine Way and Highway 1, runners will follow an out-and-back course that starts by making their way along roads for the first stretch, and then onto the trails that lead into Muir Woods National Monument, along the Dipsea Trail and the Ravine Canyon Trail, as they make their way into the place where scenes from 1983’s Return of the Jedi were filmed.
Be ready to run big hills. Organizers say that “from the word ‘Go,’ you’ll be heading up” — and they’re right. The course rises more than 1,100 feet in the first three miles, as runners climb through the old-growth redwood forests of Muir Woods, march up both rock and wooden staircases and even climb a wooden ladder from one trail to the next.
