I secretly signed my mother and me up for this race in April. I told her it was her early birthday present, that we'd get to run together again, and this time a half marathon. We were still a little shell-shocked from the LA Marathon, so a half sounded good. I met up with my mom and dad Saturday for the expo.
It was much colder in SF than we were expecting. Neither of us were dressed for the Bay Area summer. I guess that Samuel Clemens quote is true... We stopped at CVS and bought some gloves for the morning and had our carbo-load dinner at the Cheesecake factory. When we got back we laid out our clothes and went straight to bed!
Sometime in the middle of the night, I got sick. My mom felt sick too. Don't eat at the cheesecake factory before a race. Ever. We snuck down to 7-11 for pepto bismol tablets to chew as we walked down to the embarcadero. This was not starting well. Shivering and anxiously waiting by the water we visited with many a stretching runner until it was time to start.
There was a sign with a quote "The Race Even Marathoners Fear" from a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. I read it. Great article. I'd been doing hill work on the treadmill thanks to it... I heard some people say I look like I'm 12 in these photos. I stopped wearing my hair in pigtails for a while because of that, but I don't care anymore. I'm 28. My lovely mother runner is 50. She has better PRs than I do for all races.
Looking back on this picture, I realize that while I haven't lost much weight, my mom and I have certainly firmed up since then.
On to the race: The first mile we were running fast to warm up. A girl in front of us was wearing a running skirt with not much on underneath giving everyone a free show. We passed the No-Meat Athlete. A homeless man was clapping for us saying "you can do it kids". When we ran by the sourdough bread it did not smell good. Some people love that part of the Embarcadero... But for us, not while running.
Mile two was Fishermans's Wharf. Super cool running this stretch. It was nice and flat too, leading up to Ghiradelli square... and the first hill...
If I had known the hill coming up I would not have been smiling! 3 miles in and there is a huge hill going up Fort Mason. It felt huge! My mom and I walked up it. There were two men drumming this death march of a beat for us to get up there, too. Once we got up this little hill though it was smooth sailing mile 3-5. We started to warm up at mile 5 a little bit, and got this lovely view of the foggy Golden Gate Bridge.
We were so excited, for months, to run across the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course, like many other runners, we stopped to take pictures in front of it. Who knew it'd be so foggy that while we ran across it we wouldn't even be able to see the famous red bridge suspender ropes! Did you know it's called the Golden Gate bridge because with all the fog it was originally supposed to be painted gold for visibility? The U.S. Navy wanted it to be gray and black... but the Air Force proposed orange and white stripes... and after applying red primer, the bridge stayed red for a while, then orange. Not that we could see this as we ran up the bridge... Did you know that the bridge is a mile and a half long?
We spent 3 miles running on the golden gate bridge... Which was nice, except we couldn't see the bridge due to the fog, and that we had to run up it... Why up? Because to have enough clearance under the bridge... oh does it matter? I read somewhere in SF there is an 85' elevation gain driving across the bridge, and we did it twice! That was it, right? Oh no, another big hill after we were done on the Golden Gate Bridge. After a while the pasta came back to get us and we had to slow down so we didn't get sick. We tried to run hard for a moment and I heard the sound of liquid hitting the pavement next to my mom. I turned, both of us still running, and she was wiping her face. Still running... "mom, did you just-" "yep, water station, now!" But we kept running
Finally, we made it up another hill, and it was the last! We were in Golden Gate park and crossed the finish line! I was worried we took too long to get an official time for a moment because we crossed... and nothing... we just walked around. I looked around frantically for the medals. Finally someone said "medals are up there!" "PHEW!" My mom and I got our medals, our space blankets, and trekked over to the long line for a shuttle back to the start. My Garmin recorded, by the end of the race, a 1,500 foot elevation gain over the course of the 1/2. I talked to other runners who recorded 1,300 to more than mine... So I'm not sure, but all I know is that there were a lot of hills. We really worked hard for those medals, and were actually relieved to
be done. It was a little sad, a race we were looking so forward to running we didn't enjoy as much as we thought, but it was an experience for sure, and another race down. No PRs, we'll just have to save that for next time we run together...
I have signed up for the Second Half of the race on July 31,2011 . I think the First Half crosses Golden Gate bridge and Second Half is near Presidio which should be relatively flat. Still fear the hills though. Might try for hill workouts for a few months before the race just to face the unexpected.
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