Yay!! My last race report of the YEAR!!!  This post will be WAY shorter than the last..I promise!

As I mentioned, the race started at 7:00, so we woke up at 6:00 and started walking down there with about 25 minutes to spare.  It was super dark, but we could hear the crowd roar as we started walking.  They let the elite athletes go about 20 minutes early, so I think that was them taking off.  It was kinda cold that morning, so I wore my PJ bottoms over my new running skirt (they were the only pants I had big enough to easily take off over my shoes)...and my free Brooks long sleeved shirt (I got it from the Baltimore expo when I bought my shoes) over my short sleeved running shirt.  When they let the first of the non-elite runners go, I stripped both of those off and handed them to Mike. 

I tried to seed myself in the right pace group, but I was on the wrong side of the street and there were just SOOOO many people.  I have never in my life seen that many women gathered in one place.   Mike said you could feel the estrogen in the air.  I was kinda shocked to see a few men with race numbers on...but later found out that there were about 800 men (500 half and 300 full marathon) out of about 20,000 runners that day.  Wow!

Usually the first few miles are sluggish for me, but I felt great this time.  I looked at my watch at the first mile marker to see my time and was like...hmmm, why is it showing cadence?!  Crap, it was set for cycling instead of running.  I was so annoyed with myself, I didn't pay attention to my time and just reset the thing to run mode.  Ooops!

Near the 2 mile marker, I tried again to see how I was doing.  0:00:00?!?!?  Crap!!! Forgot to turn the timer on after I reset modes.  Grrrrr!!!!

I started it up, but by this point I had no clue what my time was.  I assumed I started about 3 minutes after the first runner, so I just started paying attention to the clocks at the mile markers.  They had them setup at every mile and every 5k...sweet!!

The whole running part kinda passed in a blur.  I remember the first 6 miles or so were pretty flat, and I was feeling really strong.  The scenery was gorgeous as we ran along Embarcadero...with almost constant views of the bay.  They had a few bands sprinkled across the course, and even a motivational speaker screaming at us about how great we were.  The funny part was when she hit the topic about how we were all WOMEN, STRONG WOMEN!! and the guy in front of me pumped his fists up in the air :) 

Fisherman's wharf had a small hill (which was probably comparable to the grade I was running in Baltimore) but nothing compared to THE HILL at mile 6.  Over a mile of switchbacks, climbing up the hill right next to the Golden Gate Bridge.  I'm sure the views were stunning, but I was having enough trouble gasping for air that I couldn't pay attention.   There was a short tease in the middle there, where I thought it was over and let out a little cheer before someone corrected me :(  I finally made it all the way up, and found out that the mile only took me about 12 minutes!!  Sweet!!!  Little did I know they would just be taking us halfway down and then all the way back up again.  And descending was not nearly as fun as I thought it would be.  I was definitely running fast (my Garmin registered a 5:30 pace for a bit there, but I think that was a fluke) but only because I felt like if I didn't keep turning my legs over, I would end falling down the hill.  I tried to view the scenery on the downhills as much as possible, and it was really really beautiful.  I overheard a bunch of people saying they were walking on the downhills to save their knees...and maybe that woulda been a good idea if I could have slowed down...but I really did want to get those things over with as soon as possible.  And they were helping my time :)

Just before mile 12, the courses split as they started herding the half marathoners towards the finish.  I remember thinking, holy crap I'm tired...there's no way I could keep going for another 14 miles!! (I guess we'll find out in just a few months).  At the last mile, I saw my time and realized I was blowing away my target time of 2:24 (11 minute miles) and got a short energy burst!  I crossed the mat when the clock said 2:15!!! :)


Official Time: 2:11:01 (10:00/mi)
Placement: 1923 / 12181

Surprisingly, I wasn't sore most of that day.  Walking the hills of San Francisco the next day, however was torture!!!