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Shore is fun!

Featuring the longest all-beach course on the Pacific Coast, Coronado’s annual Low Tide Ride & Stride is one of the more curious events to have found its way into the annual calendar of runners and bikers in the San Diego area.

low tide ride and stride

Picture the opening of the classic film, Chariots of Fire, with its bevy of British schoolboy runners jogging down the beach, breaking through the early morning mist and the blue sea melding into a mauve-tinted sky. Can you hear Vangalis’s instrumental theme playing in the background as the runners break the surf, scaring up the resting gulls that see them coming?

Now, update that vision to full Technicolor: instead of a pack of 30 white-outfitted runners, picture 1,000 striders and bike riders donning bright racing shorts and colorful T-shirts. Add in tandem bikes, kids in jump seats, and mothers pushing babies in wide-tired strollers.

Welcome to the Low Tide Ride & Stride, the shoreline adventure organized by Rotary Club of Coronado. Now in its 17th year, it takes participants on an 8.2-mile ride or stride from Imperial Beach to Coronado. This year’s race is set for 8 a.m., Sunday June 29 (the date changes annually to coincide with the lowest tide in the month of June). It will again take participants into territory where no civilian is allowed to romp the other 364 days of the year — the stretch of beach along the Navy Amphibious Base. That’s where the Navy SEALs train; hence, sand dunes rise close to the water’s edge, providing ample fodder for defensive training operations.

Rotarian Dan Orr has been a participant in the Low Tide race for most of its history and describes the Navy property as being the most scenic portion of the race.

LTR&S 2013 Finish-113“Even though you are riding parallel to the surf,” Orr explained, “you see this incredible view directly in front of you because the Coronado shoreline is an arc and you are right at the apex. So, while I’m watching the sand and keeping an eye out for kelp, I still see this view that takes in the Shores, the Hotel Del and the Point Loma skyline. It really is spectacular.”

Orr is one of the more competitive contestants in the Low Tide race and last year clocked in with a time of around 24 minutes. “But for a lot of people and families with kids it’s more for the fun and leisure of the event,” he said. “Most bikers average 30 or 40 minutes or more.”

To one “Striding Mom” blogger, the race was exhilarating with sightings of “shells, sand dollars and dolphins.”

The race begins at YMCA Camp Surf; bikers depart first, their launch signaled by a cannon shot. Minutes later, runners (and walkers) line up and another a cannon shot puts them on their way.

DSC_1094Bob Kranz, a Coronado Rotarian, was the organizer of the first race in 1998. Ginger Cox remembered him as an avid sports enthusiast who enjoyed skiing and kayaking as well as biking. A former executive director of the Coronado Cays Homeowners Association, Kranz died April 17, 2004 when he fell from his bike and hit his head on a rock while participating in the Rosarito-Ensenada bike race. Rotarians believe he would be pleased and astounded at the legacy he left through initiating the Low Tide event.

The first Ride & Stride had 122 participants and netted $840 in proceeds. Last year’s event, with more than 900 participants, netted $78,417.

“Bob singlehandedly came up with the idea of the Low Tide Ride & Stride and secured the Navy clearances,” said Cox, a longtime Coronado Rotarian who began helping on the, then small, race committee in 1999.

In organizing the first race, Kranz received the Navy’s permission to pass through its land with the condition that participants would not disturb the nesting grounds of two endangered species, the Lease Tern and the Snowy Plover. Yes, despite frequent live fire and simulated ordnance detonations, these birds find “home-sweet-home” on the Navy Amphibious Base. Each year on race day, volunteers from the Rotary committee and the Navy are stationed every 200 yards to ensure that bikers keep right to the water’s edge.

LTR&S 2013 Finish-107Today, organizing and funding the Low Tide Ride & Stride event is pretty much an “all-hands-on-deck” effort by members of Rotary Club of Coronado, with a committee of volunteers headed by co-chairs Gary Kennedy and Jane Braun and marketing sub-committee chair Ivan Dunn.

The 2014 Low Tide Ride & Stride’s title sponsor is Sterling Reference Laboratories, which has pledged $20,000. And Rotary Club has set an ambitious $100,000 fundraising goal, targeting sponsorship from Rotarians and community businesses.

Steve Rippe, chief credit officer with Coronado Private Bank, a platinum sponsor of this year’s race, said the financial institution plans to mount a team from its staff, headed by Senior Vice President and Director of Sales and Marketing Renee Hinton, to compete in this year’s event.

“Coronado Private Bank takes great pride in supporting this community fundraiser that is a perfect family outing,” said Rippe. “And through its contributions to Wounded Warrior charities, the event also supports those who have sacrificed for our country.”

LTR&S 2013 Finish-119The majority of funds support a variety of “Wounded Warrior” causes including the Comprehensive Combat Complex Casualty Care (C5) Unit at Naval Medical Center San Diego and Warrior Foundation Freedom Station.

Last year’s race featured the most bizarre weather to date: vestiges of a hurricane off Mexico created a brisk gale wind shortly after the start of the race that uprooted the balloon arch at race end and sent it flying, along with a couple of tents at Sunset Park.

“Fortunately, it provided a nice tail wind and some significantly faster times,” said an upbeat Orr. “You never know what the weather will be. Sometimes it’s foggy and cool, other times blue skies prevail.”

At race end, bikers receive complimentary bike washes and all participants receive a commemorative T-shirt and refreshments. Prizes are awarded three-deep in several biking and running categories and all children receive individual participant ribbons.

Early registration (postmarked on or before June 15) is $35, adults (18 and older); $15, youth. Late registration (June 16-26) is $40, adults; $20, youth, and onsite registration is $45, adults; $25, youth. Registration is open at www.kathyloperevents.com.

Early morning at Imperial Beach’s Camp Surf, Rotarians greet racers at the Registration Desk.
Early morning at Imperial Beach’s Camp Surf, Rotarians greet racers at the Registration Desk.
At last year’s Low Tide Ride & Stride an unexpected gale wind sent a balloon arch flying at race end. No problem, said the riders and striders:  the tailwind gave them their best finish times ever.
At last year’s Low Tide Ride & Stride an unexpected gale wind sent a balloon arch flying at race end. No problem, said the riders and striders: the tailwind gave them their best finish times ever.
low tide ride and stride andrew calhoun
Andrew Calhoun-Falkiewicz races to the finish.

CLM Starfish

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