Set for its 7th annual running with the half marathon distance, the Romancing the Island race here on Angel Island State Park has seen several distances over the years — a few years ago it was just a 10K, and the years before that it offered a 12K and 25K, all offering up some of the most stunningly scenic views you can find in the Bay Area.
You’ll get to go back in time. The race is run on the largest natural island in San Francisco Bay, where the Coast Miwok tribes hunted and fished many hundreds of years ago, and was a stop for Spanish explorers like Juan Manuel de Ayala, who drew the first map of the San Francisco Bay in the 1700s.
From the starting line at the Ayala Cove picnic area, runners will head southeast along the road to the main road that circles the island. Once they meet up with the road, shortly after they’ll head onto the Sunset Trail, one of the many miles of trails that wind through the heart of the island and make their way up to Mount Livermore, the island’s summit.
