alexr_rwx | race report: San Francisco Marathon!

Last weekend: San Francisco marathon! I had a fantastic race, coming in at 3:38:43 on a lovely, cool, misty morning. Hitting 3:40 was going to be my stretch goal; this was a personal best for me by about 14 minutes. Success!

I made the mistake of trying to take a bus to get to the start. The buses to the Embarcadero were running super-late due to the huge crowds of runners, and other public transit hadn't started yet, since the race starts so early in the morning. So I didn't show up in time to start with the wave that I was supposed to start with. That's not as bad as it sounds, since your personal clock doesn't start until you actually cross the starting line, but for most of the race, I was passing slower runners, and I wasn't going with a pace group like I had intended.

Once I got started, though, it went really well. The hills weren't as bad as you'd think they would be if you know San Francisco, and I was happy I brought so many energy gels to eat along the way. My pacing was pretty consistent, and that's not normally my strong suit; my friend Steph has described my running as "manic". But both of the halfs were about 1 hour, 49 minutes this time, nearly even splits. I kept on trucking right to the end. No struggling and suffering through the last few miles. It's a lot more fun to run a marathon when it's over sooner.

The race starts out at the Embarcadero, right on the water, which is lovely. Sooner or later, you get on to some hills and up to the Golden Gate Bridge. Running on the Golden Gate Bridge was beautiful, and especially pleasant because of the mist! The bridge was pretty crowded, though, and two lanes were still open to car traffic. Near the bridge, there was this great egregious display of patriotism: dozens of people in a line holding big US flags. (perhaps to counter-balance this, there were several people out with signs that said "Run for India!") Golden Gate Park is also really pretty, with lots of nice trees. Oh, and there were several good bands playing along the way: I liked the surf rock band, playing Dick Dale covers!

I remember more about the people around me than about the scenery. I gave some of them nicknames in my head; this gets easier as you get more delirious over the course of the race. "Caballo Loco" was running really erratically; I would catch up to him periodically, but then he would surge ahead again, weaving through the crowd. He must have also gotten a late start, since he was going so much faster than the people around us. He eventually left me behind around mile 17. "Batman" had black shorts and a utility belt full of Gu packets. He was running pretty consistently, but I left him around mile 23.

There were lots of folks with festive outfits. I saw people with fluffy tutus, including at least one guy with a shaved head and a metal goatee; lots of good hair colors and cool socks; one guy in white briefs and leather straps around his chest...

Just a fun race!

Next time: shoot for 3 hours, 30 minutes? (??!)