Set for its 8th annual running here on the largest natural island in San Francisco Bay, the Angel Island Half Marathon & 5-mile race take runners on a looping trail run around Angel Island State Park, a place where you can see some of the most stunning views of San Francisco, the Marin Headlands and the rest of the Bay Area.
The island on which you’ll run has a history that dates back long before European settlers arrived, as the native Miwok people made their home here for seasonal hunting; it was also a stop for Spanish explorers like Juan Manuel de Ayala, who was one of the earliest to map the Bay Area.
In later years, the island has served as a military fort — there’s an installation at Fort McDowell on the eastern side of the island — as well as an immigration processing center for as many as a million immigrants from China and other countries, and even as a detention center for German and Japanese prisoners of war during World War II.
