Race Report: The San Francisco Marathon

What day is it? Thursday? Then I have Thursday Depression.

Have you ever taken the red eye and gone to work? Don't do it. Especially if your job involves either writing coherently, or clean hair.

The rest of my San Fran trip was AWESOME and involved animals, beers, beaches, baseball, more beers, hiking, yoga, and taco salad, which is my new favorite meal (spoiler alert - it involves Doritos). Hump Day was less palatable, and involved 4 hours of airplane sleep, 202 unread emails, and coffee. Lots of coffee.

But let's not dwell on the negative, and instead discuss the San Francisco Marathon, in all its hilly, early-morning, bridge-crossing, hilly, scenic, hilly glory. With hills.



Pre-Race: As you've heard, my trip from New York on Friday morning was nothing short of harrowing. Thankfully, getting to Megan and Ralph's apartment from SFO was a non-issue. Oh, except I went to the wrong apartment first. But once I got there, Ralph strapped me onto the back of his scooter (so California!) and we headed downtown to meet Megan for lunch at the Ferry Building Marketplace. I only had to almost get off and push us uphill three or four times on the way.

Post-lunch, I took the free shuttle from the host hotel, the Hyatt Regency, to the Expo. Bib pick up was smooth, and the "virtual race bag" meant I wasn't toting around a trash bag full of race fliers and samples of that weird shaving gel that comes in that little plastic squirt package with a yellow index card that is always in race bags. Anyone know what that is? Anyone ever used it? Didn't think so, so I was fine with a "virtual" bag of coupons for things I will never buy anyway.

I needed a few cold weather articles of clothing for what I was imaging as 5:00am San Francisco weather, so I took a loop of the Expo and stocked up on race day essentials. I also got to meet Bart Yasso, who told me I had to run negative splits on Sunday. No pressure; just the Chief Running Officer of Runner's World demanding something that nearly every marathoner on earth struggles with on race day.


After taking care of everything I needed at the Expo, I met up with my friend Paul to catch up and go for a walk. Just a nice, easy pre-race stroll, taking in the sights and - what's this? We're lost in the Tenderloin, the worst neighborhood in San Francisco? By "nice, easy stroll," I meant "Olympic-caliber race walking." And "the sights" were "hobos selling crack."

Thankfully we got our bearings eventually and had a pleasant afternoon walking down Market Street, talking race day strategy, both of ours being "run easy and have fun." And speaking of fun, it was almost happy hour!

I headed back to Megan and Ralph's place for a shower and a couple of beers before dinner and a house party in Oakland. House parties are the new tapers. Alas, I'd been awake approximately 23 consecutive hours by the time we arrived, so mostly I nursed a beer in the corner and held my eyeballs open with the fingers of my free hand. Best party attendee ever.

We woke up Saturday and I was sad: a whole day without drinking delicious beers I can't get in New York? Marathons are so lame. But I managed to occupy myself with brunch with the whole crew (Megan, Ralph, IMan, Chaz, and Beth) in Pacific Heights and walking all around San Francisco. The weather couldn't have been better, so Megan and Ralph humored the tourist in me and took me to Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, and Ghiradelli Square, where I made an excellent pre-race hydration decision:



Chocolate, coffee, and whipped cream. They'll have Porta Potties on this course, right? Also, I don't know why I wouldn't let myself have a beer, something I obviously know my stomach tolerates exceedingly well, but I'd drink this, which was essentially a prescription for Type 2 diabetes...

We relaxed a bit before meeting IMan, Chaz and Beth for dinner, so I packed up my overnight and race day gear, and Megan and Ralph drank beers because they are cruel assholes. We headed to Franchino's in North Beach for a pasta feast/early bird special. Oh yes, did I mention the marathon started at 5:30am? It did. So we had to eat dinner at lunch time in order to go to bed early. Thanks to Megan, Ralph, and Chaz for indulging us on that one.

So we ate, we drank (water), we talked about assisted suicide - just your standard pre-marathon dinner table conversation - and then parted ways with Megan and Ralph and headed to Pacific Heights (Pac Heights for those in the know) to go to sleep. IMan had the Jimmy Legs and so I didn't sleep as well as I could have, but am a nice person and didn't punch him in the ribs.

Race Morning: The alarm went off at 4:15am. Disgusting. Except I act like it's Christmas morning and I'm six on marathon mornings, so I jumped out of bed and got dressed while wolfing down a Clif Bar. I didn't have my usual cup of coffee, which made me a little anxious, but my bowels and I apparently have an unspoken agreement about what needs to happen on marathon mornings regardless of stimulant intake, so it was all good. (August 4, 2011: Claire makes her most blatantly pooping reference on the Internet to date).

Chaz got up at 4:45am and drove us to the start, which was amazing and made my life infinitely better. BART - San Francisco's version of the subway - doesn't run all night, so public transport wasn't an option. Luckily most everyplace in SF I visited was walkable. "Luckily" for the poor shmucks who had to walk to the start of the marathon, I mean. I got door-to-door service.

Bag check was a breeze, though the trucks didn't appear to be in any logical order. Still, they were well-labeled, and IMan and I had plenty of time to check our gear and hit the Porta Potties before the start. We parted ways for our separate corrals and start times - IMan was right behind the elites in corral 2, while I was back in 4 - and I was left to entertain myself.


The first half marathon runners started with us full marathoners, so I started chatting with a fellow from Utah running the half. He'd done the full several times before, so I had a chance to pick his brain about where the worst hills were. Answer? Miles 1 through 26.2.

My corral started at 5:52am, so we slowly inched forward as the Ferry Building clock ticked down. My old buddy Bart Yasso was doing emcee duty, and the field was small enough that I could see him standing on the sidelines. In shorts and a t-shirt. Maybe those cold weather clothes from the expo were unnecessary. I was almost too warm in a long sleeved top over my singlet, and all I'd done thus far was bounce up and down in place a few times.

The Race: We started right on time at 5:52 and made our way along the Embarcadero in the near-darkness. Less than a mile in, I ditched my long sleeved top, but decided to tie it around my waist in case it was cold and windy going across the Golden Gate Bridge. The out and back across the bridge was close to 4 miles - plenty of time to get cold and wet.

I spent the first 4 miles chatting with my Utah buddy, who advised me that the hill up to the Golden Gate was a bad one. He was correct. But he neglected to mention the hill between Ghiradelli Square and Crissy Field. Ugh. The San Francisco Marathon is lucky that is also the first place you can see the Golden Gate, because I'm sure they'd have an unreasonably high 4 mile drop out rate otherwise.



I stopped to take plenty of pictures coming towards the bridge, but nothing captures how awesome and bad ass it was to run over the thing. I've run some of the most scenic and famous marathons in the country, but getting to high five IMan on the out and back across the Golden Gate might be my best marathon experience to date. Here we are, 3,000 miles from home, running the same marathon with different start times and at different paces, and we find each other among literally thousands of other people and high five in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge on a day that happens to be perfectly clear? And it wasn't some rinky-dink, misfire high five. It was one of those "perfect contact" high fives that's so good, you want to high five again to celebrate the success of the first high five. Our hands were destined to high five at this exact moment. It's a sign!


A sign of what? Well perhaps a sign that I should stop daydreaming about making my marathon experiences into romantic comedies, because approximately 2 miles later, I tripped on a seam in the pavement on the Golden Gate Bridge and absolutely ate shit. Two scraped knees, one scraped elbow, not insubstantial amounts of blood, and miraculously no tears later (don't make fun of me. As someone with more mid-run falling experience than most, I assure you that it's the realization that you aren't seriously injured that brings on the waterworks. I choked them back, in large part because I couldn't see how hard I was bleeding, so I didn't actually know if I was in the clear or not), I was helped up by a kindly runner who saved me from certain death by trampling. I made quick stop to ask some toll booth attendants on the San Francisco side of the bridge how bad it looked (they actually said, "that doesn't look good," but stopping gave me a chance to see for myself that I was just a little scraped but not actually hurt) and the headed to the Presidio.

Remember how much I hated Newton during the Boston Marathon? Replace "Newtown" with "the Presidio" and "Boston" with "San Francisco" and then read that sentence again. The Presidio was up, up, up hill, then slightly less uphill, then more up, up, pump-fake plateau, up, up, uphill. Woof. Thank God, Megan and Ralph were waiting for me when I finally reached the top! Megan jumped in and ran with me for a bit while Ralph was our personal photographer. They said I looked good, which was a lie as I was still actively bleeding, but a great boost, especially after so much climbing. Also, they looked good, especially for having gotten up at 6:30am on a Sunday just to watch the stinking marathon! I cruised down a nice long decline stretch and evaluated: I was close to the half and feeling really good despite my injuries. But I was starting to get hungry.

A word on support: the San Francisco Marathon partnered with some electrolyte beverage I'd never heard of (and if I didn't have a "virtual race bag" I'm sure I'd have a flier to tell you what it was called). I avoided it for the first 11 or so miles of the race, wary of ingesting anything my body wasn't used to during the race. But even after a Gu, I needed some calories, so I caved and drank some. It was actually fine (unlike like Rock n' Roll's awful Cytomax) and I had no digestive issues, but mostly I'm using this as an opportunity to mention how annoying the cups on the course were. They were made of corn starch, which obviously meant they were biodegradable and easier on the environment - a green initiative I applaud. BUT. They were impossible to drink out of on the run. They were so brittle that you couldn't fold them in half to make a spout for yourself. Mostly I just threw liquid at my face and hoped some of it ended up in my mouth. That's what she said.

Moving on, we headed towards Golden Gate Park and the first half finish/second half start. This stretch was full of rolling hills and loops, and while pretty, it got old sort of fast. I did see some buffalo in the park:


Most important? At mile 15, I saw the local Hash House Harriers, who treated me to a beer! Finally made good on that NYC Marathon goal!


Miles 15-20 were pretty tough and steep, and after we left Golden Gate Park, there wasn't a whole lot to look at. I did get contact high from inhaling pot smoke along Haight Street. Good thing there was no finish line drug test.

More running, more hills, etc etc etc...

Mile 25! I see AT&T Park! And someone offering shots of whiskey! I love this city! I kept on keeping on, headed back towards the Ferry Building, when I spied Megan and Ralph just after the mile marker. It was just the boost I needed to get up over the highest curb I've ever seen and make my way along the Embarcadero toward the finish. Which was an interminable distance. Seriously, I think 1.2 miles lasted about 3 hours total. Think about how fast I would have run if those 1.2 miles didn't take 3 hours! Like, I would have run a 48 minute marathon! Hmm, next time...

The End: Just before the 26 mile mark, I passed the 3:50 pace group. I came across the line at 3:48:57. With the photo opps, the hills, and the bleeding, I'm quite delighted with my finish time, actually. I had a really great experience, doing exactly what I wanted to and at no point pushing myself into the realm of highly uncomfortable/potentially pants-shitting. Most importantly, I think my time on a tough course bodes really well for my Fall racing season. Which starts... Now.

And with that, I leave you with a couple official race photos, courtesy of MarathonFoto. Most were heinous and, as I predicted, NSFW in their erect nippleness. But this is my blog, so here are the ones where I look skinny and/or fast.





And, my attempt to point out my cut up knees to a photographer who was only taking shots from the waist up:



Creep.