I took an early morning flight with American Airlines to SFO from LAX. I was upgraded to a first class seat. After a quick short flight, I landed in SFO. From there I put $20 on my card and took the BART to the Embarcadero station, walked over to the Hyatt Regency and caught the free shuttle over to the expo at Fort Mason. I prefer this location over the Concourse Exhibition Center. It wasn't as crowded. After picking up my race packet, I picked up bibs and shirts for my friends as well. The volunteers didn't really bother checking for my friends' IDs or copies of their emails even though I had them with me. I then went through the expo. I didn't buy anything, but I did register for next year's race. I then got in line and took the shuttle back to the Hyatt. I charged up my phone a little bit in the lobby before I started heading over to my friend's house for their son's 100th day party. It seemed like the Hyatt was hosting a bunch of conventions. The place was swarming with people with badges. No wonder the room rates for that weekend was so high!
First class inflight treats
Coffee with Baileys
Expo at Fort Mason
Bib pickup
Bus back to the Hyatt Regency
I took the BART down to the Glen Park station. They came and picked me up along the way to go pick up the cake. There was a ton of food! No wonder my friend invited me over to be a designated eater! I drank a bunch of Summer Shandy's and Blue Moons. I ate a bunch of egg rolls, pork cheeks, duck meat, and sticky rice. The food was so good. I wish I could've eaten more, but I didn't want to make the race tomorrow harder than it would already be. Also I still needed to eat dinner with my other friends.
Summer Shandy... refreshing!
This little piggy went to the market...
100 day old celebration... for some reason Facebook always wants to tag him as me!
Afterwards, they dropped me off at the BART station where I took it to the Powell station. It cost only $1.85 each way. From there, I walked a few blocks over to my hotel, the Post Hotel. When I checked in, the guy at the front desk had zero people skills. There was no exchange of pleasantries. He only asked for an ID and a credit card. He didn't have me sign anything. I thought that was kind of weird. He gave me a room card that had a chip on it. Oh well off to my room up a very old elevator. You had to manually slide the elevator gate closed before the elevator will work. I took the stairs from then on. The hotel corridors looked to be in really bad shape. They must be in the middle of remodeling. When I found my room, the door was open as the two maids were just finishing up with my room. Thank goodness the room was pretty nice and clean.
I took a quick shower before walking over to eat dinner at Marlowe with a couple of my friends. I ordered the Marlowe Burger with a salad. I was still feeling quite stuffed from lunch but the burger was good. I liked that the buns did not disintegrate. The side salad was good and very different from the regular field green salads that I'm used to eating. On the walk back we nearly got run over by a dumbass that probably was either drunk or high and didn't even notice that he had a red light. He screeched to a halt right in front of us. Thank goodness my friend saw him coming and stopped me from entering the intersection!
Love the wall decorations!
Marlowe Burger
Along the way back to my hotel, I stopped in a very nice Walgreens to buy some water, bananas, and Powerade. Once I got back to my room, I grabbed the ice bucket and went searching for the ice machine. I walked down every corridor on my floor, but was unsuccessful in finding the ice machine. So I went down a floor and heard the humming of the ice machine. I packed the pork cheeks that my friend had packed for me into the bucket of ice hoping that it would keep until tomorrow after the race.
Found some ice for my pork cheeks
I finally went through the stuff that I had gotten at the expo and gathered my race gear for tomorrow's race. I only had one pack of Shot Bloks left, so I had to scrounge up some of my gels so that I would have enough to eat during the race.
Front
Back
Flat Runner
Sunday 7/26
I got ready and wore my throwaway jacket for the walk to the starting line. The walk over wasn't too pleasant starting from close to the Tenderloin until I got to Market Street. I reached the end of Market Street at a little before 4:30 am. That was where I was to meet up with my friends to give them their race packets. Once I got a text from my friends that they were going to be late, I went ahead and used one of the nearby portapotties. While waiting for my friends, I bumped into the famous Endorphin Dude. When I finally found my friends by the volunteer tents, I quickly jogged over to the UPS truck to drop off my bag before I headed to my starting corral. Along the way, I bumped into a few more of my Marathon Maniac friends. We tried our best to cut through the crowds to get to our corrals, but it was packed with people either waiting for the portapotties, the gear check, or they were also trying to get to the corrals. Avoiding the pre-race stress of navigating through these crowds is one of the reasons why I prefer to travel solo or to show up super early. Fortunately I was able to get into my corral before they closed it.
Ferry Building
It's go time!
The first couple of miles were okay, then there was a short steep climb at Fort Mason. It was again pretty flat until it was time to climb up to the Golden Gate Bridge. I felt so out of shape during those climbs and while I was crossing the bridge. I was happy to see some of my friends while running on the bridge. After getting off of the bridge, the course headed South towards Richmond and the Golden Gate Park. There would be a succession of climbs before we level off a bit going into the park. As with every year that I've run this race, I was very tempted to turn towards the finish line for the half marathon.
1: 8:36
2-3: 17:36 (8:48)
4: 9:20
5: 9:32
6: 11:00
7: 9:53
8: 10:03
9: 10:00
10: 11:46
11: 9:41
12: 11:57
13: 12:42
The section through Golden Gate Park was pretty scenic, but it was not my favorite part of the course only because of the existence of the 2nd Half Marathon. Perhaps if I'm in better shape, it wouldn't bother me as much. But when you're almost 19 miles into your race, it sucks to have so many runners with fresh legs zoom past you! I seriously wish that they would get rid of the 2nd Half Marathon, but that'll never happen since the 2nd half of the course is the faster half. It's just another way for them to make money.
Can I sit down at that nice bench?
While running through the park, I came across a lady sporting some Breast Cancer gear. I took a walk break and chatted with her for a bit. It would turn out that this race was her 285th marathon! Also come December, it would be her 5th year anniversary as a breast cancer survivor! I wished her well and took off to finish the race. You just never know who you're going to meet or run into at a marathon. It was incredibly inspiring to see someone rise above life's adversities.
285 marathons and breast cancer survivor!
Nearing the end of the park, I ran a little bit with a fellow marathoner and we talked a little bit about baseball. He was a Giants fan and I was a Dodger fan... see, we can get along and have a friendly discussion! It was good to talk to another knowledgeable baseball fan even he supports the rival team. I ran with him until we got out of the park at about mile 19. From mile 20 on, it would mostly be downhill to the finish line as we headed towards the bay. I drank a mimosa somewhere between miles 23 and 24, that was a first for me during a marathon. They're usually passing out beer. While heading towards mile 25, it was pretty cool to see one of my Marathon Maniac friends cheering along the side of the course. I believe he has been injured so I haven't seen him at races lately.
Seeing the AT&T Park at about mile 25 was a sign that the race was almost over. There was a game that afternoon, so it was a bit crowded this year running through that section. It was good to see my friend cheering on the runners just as we were about to get back on the Embarcadero.
Yuck! Finish line coming up!
14: 11:03
15: 14:08
16: 15:06
17: 14:11
18: 14:28
19: 13:19
20-24: 1:09:56 (13:59)
25: 14:42
26: 13:46
26.2: 2:01
Finish: 5:14:50
Done!
After crossing the finish line and getting my medal, I bumped into a couple of my fellow Marathon Maniacs. I grabbed a mylar blanket even though the day had already gotten quite warm. I could always use it in another race. For post race goodies, I picked up a bottle of coconut water, chocolate protein drink, water, and a banana. I then made my way to the tent to pick up my bonus California Dreamin' medal.
After I got my gear bag, I packed away my stuff and headed to the beer garden to get my free beer. They were serving Lagunitas and I wasn't about to pass on that after my near-fainting episode in Seattle. My friends met up with me in the beer garden. They were kind enough to buy me two more beers just for picking up their race packets. Lagunitas was offering four of their beers, Pils, Day Time IPA, IPA, and Little Sumpin'. The only one that I didn't have was the Pils. We hung out there until they were breaking down the entire beer garden. We then went our separate ways and I made the long trek back to my hotel room.
Nice beer garden
Medals
Back in my room, I ate the pork that my friend had packed for me after I had taken a shower and just vegged out on the bed while watching some TV. Then later that night, I mustered up enough energy to go back out to eat a burger at one of my favorite burger joints, Super Duper Burgers. I got the Super Burger added cheese and bacon with everything on it. Sure it costs about twice as much as a Double Double, but it also tastes about twice as good! Their pickles are also pretty good. They have a little spicy kick to them.
Super Burger
Monday 7/27
I checked out a little before 11 am and started heading over to Fog City to have lunch with my friend. It was sunny and pretty hot, so I walked up Battery hoping to get some shade. It got there a bit early, so I sat at a nearby bench in the shade to cool off. The place was pretty empty when we first sat down, but it did get pretty busy for lunch. I started it off with a Bloody Devil, which was a Bloody Mary with a deviled egg. Instead of going with the usual burger, I decided to change things up and went with their Cubano sandwich. It had roasted pork, house cured ham, Swiss cheese, grainy mustard and came with salt & vinegar fries. The sandwich was decent, but it was a bit overpriced. I did think that the Bloody Devil was one of the better drinks that I've had. I guess it's to be expected since it was located in a pretty prime area for extracting tourist dollars. As usual, it was really good catching up with my friend. She's like the little sister that I never had.
Cubano and Bloody Devil
I took a stroll down the Embarcadero and walked over to the Metreon to watch a movie at the AMC. I ended up picking Southpaw. I heard very little about the movie. Later I would read that the movie had a lot of bad reviews. The movie was bashed for being filled with cliches, however the critics did agree that the acting was good. I concur, the acting was superb. It was one intense and emotional movie! I liked it even though the movie was very predictable. It helped that I also love Rachel McAdams. :)
Pony Express!
After the movie, I then made my way over to the Powell station to catch the BART to the SFO airport. I got there super early to try and get on an earlier flight. I was fortunate to secure a standby seat on an earlier flight back to LAX. That saved me a couple of hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment