Date: October 12th, 2025
Time: 4:20:30 (9:56 pace)
Weight: 194 lbs

Here is a report from my participation in the 2025 Humboldt Redwoods Marathon. My training didn't materialize due to lack of time so I took the run easy. I ended up having a really enjoyable run! This has got to be one of the easiest marathon course ever, even easier than the almost identical Avenue of the Giants. I will definitely be back.

This was now my fourth time to the Humboldt County and the second time running a marathon on the Avenue of the Giants. The first time I passed through this land of the redwoods was in 2014 on a drive from Seattle to Napa for the Ragnar Relay. I then returned in 2016 to run the Avenue of the Giants Marathon. Then I came back in 2022 for a week-long "sabbatical" in Ferndale. I really like coming up here. Being originally from Europe but now living in Southern California, I really miss rain and proper trees. Humboldt County reminds me a bit of home, I guess.

We took a direct United flight from LAX to Eureka/Arcata airport. Both Sandra and I got upgraded but ended up with different seats. Sandra was in a single while I was in a double. Once my companion, an older fairly large black guy, arrived, I asked him if he wanted to switch with Sandra. Later, I found out from the flight attendants that my companion was the rapper Xzibit on his way to a concert at some NorCal casino. After chatting with some other passengers also coming for the marathon, we grabbed our rental car from Enterprise and proceeded down to Eureka to check in at the historical Eureka Inn. This hotel is truly spectacular, and judging by the many portraits of famous people who have stayed here (including many world-famous politicians and entertainers), used to be the social hub of this town. One complaint I have however is that, at least our room, had extremely poor sound insulation, and this is coming from somebody who gets to stay in a lot of cheap inns because of my work commuting schedule. This was particularly bad the night before the marathon, as I could not fall asleep until after 1 am due to our neighbor's conversation and TV. They easily could have been in our room with how thin the wall was. That afternoon we drove down to Ferndale and went for a short walk along the Lost Coast. We also stopped by for dinner at Ferndale Pizza Company (where we had the tasty Hot Cowgirl), and also tried ciders at the Sitka wine lounge.

Race Day

Both Humboldt Redwoods and the Avenue of the Giants marathons are organized by the same group, Six Rivers Running Club, and are run on essentially the same course, just in a flipped order. The course is basically an L, with the start and the finish at the corner point. Each leg of the L is a quarter-marathon long, so each out-and-back is a half marathon. One of the legs is on the famous Avenue of the Giants, which is a single lane sightseeing road through the massive California coastal redwoods, while the other leg is on Bull Creek Flats Road, also called Mattole Road on Google Maps. For "Avenue", you run the Bull Creek section first, and at least when I ran it, Marathon started before the half-marathon and the 10k. Those two races are run on the Avenue. This meant that you end up finishing with the tail end of the half-marathoners, who tend to be really slow and often take up the whole width of the road by casually walking side by side. So, just when you are tired and looking forward to finishing, you need to start doing a ton of zig-zagging. Humboldt, on the other hand, has you run on the Avenue with everyone else, so you also get the moral boost of being in a large pack at the start. In "Avenue" you are more solo at the beginning, since many fewer people run the full marathon.

Cal Poly Humboldt

The next day we woke up to a heavy rain brought in by an unseasonably early storm. The system moved down to Southern California by the next day and covered our home town with almost two inches of precipitation. We got very lucky in the storm not arriving a day earlier to soak the race. The storm moved out just in time for our check out

Training

My tra

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