I caught an early Saturday morning flight with Southwest airlines out of John Wayne Airport to SFO. This time there was no flight delay. Once we landed, I made my way to the BART. I took it to the Civic Center and walked over to the expo. The expo was again held at the Concourse Exhibition Center located on 8th Street between Brannan St and Townsend St. I liked that they used more of the facilities this year with the entrance being on 8th St instead of 7th St. They did really well controlling the flow of people this year. There was a lot of people but it didn't feel overly crowded as was the case in prior years. After picking up my bib, shirt, and my water bottle for being a 5 year loyal runner I met up with my friend Marathon Mitch. We went through the expo and met up with a few Marathon Maniacs.
We left the expo and took the free complimentary expo bus which dropped us off at the Hyatt Regency near the Embarcadero. We walked over to the Super Duper Burger to eat lunch. Their Super burger is my favorite burger out of all of the burgers that I've eaten so far. They also have pretty good pickles. After eating our delicious burgers, we parted ways.
Super burger with cheese and bacon
I stopped by the nearby CVS to buy some drinks before walking over to my hotel. I stayed again at the Union Square Plaza Hotel located in the Tenderloin, not the best part of town. But it's one of the cheapest hotels in the downtown area. The rooms are a bit older but pretty clean. This time I was given a room on the second floor which was nice since I could just use the stairs and skip the rickety slow elevator.
In my hotel room, I went through my expo haul, which wasn't much. I miss the old days when they used to stuff the goodie bags with... goodies. Now it's usually just a bunch of cards and advertisements for other races and products that I do not use. At least SFM is one race that just gives you a virtual goodie bag so I don't have to throw out a bunch of paper. The race shirt was a yellow long sleeve tech shirt and looked pretty nice, but fit really small. I always wear medium and can sometimes get away with a small, but it felt more like an extra small.
Expo haul
After watching some NBA on TV and just relaxing, I went out to the nearby Kare-Ken to get dinner. Oh yeah, the remote for the TV didn't work. I had to get up and change stations the old fashion way. I ordered their chicken katsu curry and shrimp added an egg. I took it back to my room to eat. After finishing dinner, I laid out my race gear before going to sleep.
Chicken katsu and shrimp add egg
Race gear
Sunday
Well I tried to take my usual morning shower, but for the life of me, I could not figure out how to get the shower to work. Out of the hundreds of hotels I've stayed at, this was the first time that I could not figure it out. I think the switch from tub to shower was broken off. So I decided to take a bath. But there was no drain stopper. So I grabbed a towel and plugged the drain with it. I guess it's always good to be a little like MacGyver and adapt to your situation.
The early morning walk to the starting line is always an interesting one especially when you stay in the Tenderloin. At the starting area, they had extra security checking bags just before you entered the gear check area. After checking my bag, I was fortunate to find a very short line for the portapotties. After taking care of the final pee, I made it into the wave 2 corral. I took a couple of pictures of the Bay Bridge and the starting line before finding a spot to sit by the sidewalk. As the dawn's early light started to get brighter, I bumped into a couple of my friends. Right before they were ready to start the race, I went up as front as I could go to watch wave 1 take off. It was a very small wave compared to wave 2. Apparently the first wave was for invited and subseeded athletes.
Wave 2
Bay Bridge
Bay Bridge
Friends
Wave 1 being released
I started the race as usual at a comfortable pace. It was a bit crowded but I just tried to stick right behind somebody that was running at my pace. By the time I reached mile 2, the left ankle and calf was already getting sore. The gimpy left leg felt better on the uphills but would feel really fragile on the downhills. I pulled over at Crissy Field to take a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Golden Gate Bridge
Going out and back, up and over the famed Golden Gate Bridge was a complete grind. On my way off of the bridge, Mitch caught up to me and decided to pace me through the halfway point. Going up mile 12 took a lot out of me. I even started getting nauseated even though we were going so slow.
1: 8:28
2: 8:46
3: 9:12
4: 10:14
5: 10:53
6: 11:15
7: 10:12
8: 11:29
9: 11:04
10: 12:10
11: 10:14
12: 13:38
13: 13:08
Half: 2:21:47
God bless Mitch for sticking with me through the halfway point, but I wanted him to take off and leave me alone so I could deal with the nausea by myself. It wasn't until I pointed out to him that we were just passed by Dean Karnazes that he finally left me to go run with Karno. :) Running through the Golden Gate Park has always been my least favorite part of the course. You are constantly being passed by the faster runners starting the 2nd half marathon and it is especially not fun on the narrow parts of the course. It was not until you've reached mile 19 when you leave the park and run on Haight Street where you finally get enough space. The weather was getting pretty warm at this point, but there was enough tree cover. But by the time I got to mile 23, we were pretty much exposed to the sun. Once I reached mile 24, I knew that the end was near so I slowed down a bit for the final two miles.
14: 13:13
15-16: 29:30 (14:45)
17: 14:32
18: 13:22
19: 15:54
20: 14:26
21: 13:02
22: 13:57
23: 13:14
24: 14:07
25: 15:25
26: 15:01
26.2: 2:18
Finish: 5:28:46
For this race, I ate Honey Stinger Vanilla Waffles instead of my usual Shotbloks only because I forgot to pack the Shotbloks. But I happened to have a few waffles in my bag. They turned out to be pretty good. I think my stomach started calming down after I forced myself to eat one. Also I didn't have any problems with leg cramps, but that probably had more to do with the much slower pace early on.
After I picked up a bunch of post-race snacks and drinks, I made my way to the tent for the extra medals. Their signs weren't that great for the LA/SF Challenge medals, but I figured that I'd go to the same spot as last year and was fortunate enough to find those medals being passed out there. For the second year in completing the challenge, we received a larger square medal.
More medals!
I didn't feel like eating lunch after getting back to my hotel so I snacked on the King's Hawaiian rolls and drank some sports drink instead. For an early dinner, I walked over to Pearl's Deluxe Burger to pick up a nice tasty burger. I ate some of their pickles while I waited for my order. When my order was up, I took the burger back to my room. It was pretty big, nice and juicy, but it was not as good as a Super burger.
Pearl's deluxe burger with cheese and bacon
Monday
I was woken up early to loud sounds from the alleyway. Apparently today was trash day. Then later in the morning while I was still laying in bed, I heard a bunch of noise outside. A bum was rearranging a bunch of stuff. If you value your sleep, you'll probably want to request a room on a higher floor.
Lots of noise outside
For breakfast I ate a banana and a chocolate drink from yesterday's snacks that were handed out post race. I was watching TV and forgot that I needed to check out at 11am. I received a reminder call from the front desk. Lucky for me, I had already packed everything up. I grabbed my stuff, checked out, and hauled all of my stuff with me over to the 21st Amendment Brewery for lunch. This was my second time here. It's a great place for a burger and some beers. The salad's not bad either. Even though I'm a Dodger fan, I tried their Gigantes IPA. No, I did not die. :) The bartender asked if I wanted a 4th beer, but I had to decline since I wanted to be awake during the movie that I was going to see before heading over to the airport to catch my flight.
Amber Waves
Classic burger with jack cheese and bacon add house salad
Love Boat
Gigantes IPA
I walked over to the Metreon to watch the Star Trek: Into Darkness movie. I liked this movie a lot more than the Man of Steel. Both movies had a lot of CGI, as is the norm in most movies these days, but Star Trek did a much better job at presenting the story line. It had a good combination of action scenes and a decent plot line. Conversely, the Man of Steel had way too much mindless fight scenes and endless destruction. I just flat out got bored. Also I liked the original General Zod better... the acting was better. Anyways, after the movie, I hopped on the BART and headed to the airport for home.
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