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Super San Fran

Super San Fran

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Blame the late post on vaycay. At least I remembered to write a race recap, albeit about a week late.

The San Francisco Marathon (the ‘the’ is important here, folks… think The Ohio State University) was going to be my tenth state—and thus, get me into the 50 States Club—and my fifteenth marathon. I was pretty floored by that latter distinction, and on some of my final pre-marathon runs, I went through all my marathons in chronological order to make sure that SF was, in fact, number 15. Sure was!!

Anyway, getting to the race was a bit of a ruckus, thanks to wild and thunderstorm-y weather at Midway, but once I got there (a day late and by way of San Diego), it rocked. I spent hardly any time at the expo, since it was pretty crowded on Saturday morning and smelled like a barn (not sure why). I got to meet up with a college friend and her family (hi, Cecy!), go out on their boat for a bit on Saturday night, and walked about 15 minutes to the race start, at the Embarcadero, on Sunday morning before my 5:45 a.m. Race take-off.

You read that correctly… 5:45. It was dark while we were waiting for the race to start, and the temps were a much-welcome change from the holy humidity of Chicago.

To summarize the race in a quick phrase, it was super. Seriously. People made this race out to be something larger than life– “ohmygosh, you’re running on THOSE hills????” – when, in reality, I’m sure the RD spared us the worst of SF’s acclaimed hills. For the first few miles, we ran alongside the Embarcadero and the bay, then jutted over to Fort Mason, went through a little park-y area, then climbed up to, and went over, the Golden Gate bridge not once, but TWICE! By this time, it was still pretty early (maybe around 7am?), and the fog was thick, so I didn’t get the luxury of taking in any SF cityscapes from the bridge. Just running over it was BA enough though. After the bridge, we made our way over to another section of the city where we had some serious potentially quad-killing downhills, then spent a good portion of the second half (miles 12/13-19ish) over in Golden Gate state park. I wasn’t expecting to encounter any wild buffalo in my treks through SF, so you can imagine my plesant surprise when I did 🙂 After the park, we traversed over some more major downhills on Haight St. before jutting east (I think) for a bit, and then finishing our final miles along the water and over by the Giants’ ballpark, putting us right back where we started earlier that morning. It was a very efficient way to discover SF on foot, suffice it to say!

The RD really did a nice job of taking care of the runners on this marathon adventure. The shirts were nice (a very cool tech shirt), the medals were enormous (not necessary, but always a nice touch), and the fluid stations were strategically placed every 2 miles, which was fine considering the very mild temps of the course (50s, perhaps, with virtually no humidity to speak of… at least nothing like the humidity of the midwest at this time in the summer). The volunteers were chipper and cheery, and though the spectators were a bit sparse, I was always in the company of other runners, many of whom were doing either the first or second half. The finish line area had a TON of food for the participants, and picking up my gear and heat-sheet was a breeze. I think I paid about $110 or so for my race entry, and I think it was a good investment, especially for someone who had never been to SF before and wanted to see as much as possible in the short time I was there.

Were the hills as fearsome as the WSJ made it out to be? Ehhhhh… not really. This course really made me think of Boston, in that the hills, themselves, aren’t necessarily killer; it’s just their placement. I think people may have a guaranteed fear of a SF road race going into it because they think they’ll be running up the cable-car hills featured on the rice-a-roni commercials. None of ’em were THAT dramatic. They were challenging, but for the most part, they were short, and once you just hunkered down to conquer them, they were over. Really.

Now don’t get me wrong, I won’t claim the SF course was easy, but it was very fair. Had I not done any hillwork this spring, leading up to my Boston race, or this summer, leading up to this race, I surely would have suffered. The same thing goes for speedwork. The second half of the course was remarkably fast—so fast, as I explained to C and my in-laws over vacation this past week, that I was genuinely surprised that I didn’t trip over my feet and wind up rolling down Haight St. (or others). I could definitely see why people would come to run a PR on the second half’s course.

I’m very pleased with my 3:53 finish, especially since I was aiming for a 4-4:30 and because I didn’t really know what to expect, having never done the course before. Immediately after the race, I met C and my in-laws down in SoCal to vacation in Orange County for a week, so thanks to a 13-hour day on my feet at Disneyland, I have recovered remarkably well, and fast, from this marathon. It’s Sunday, and my legs feel like they ran a race a MONTH ago, not just a week.

Bank on the SF race. You won’t be disappointed.

San Fran is a-comin’… but that doesn’t make me any better than you

San Fran is a-comin’… but that doesn’t make me any better than you

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The countdown is on for the San Francisco Marathon – state #10 and marathon #15 for me, incredible as that is to believe.

I’ve never been to San Fran, or even to any other part of Cali, so I’m super stoked for the race.  I’ll only be spending a quick weekend in SF before venturing down to southern Cali and the OC for a vacation with C and my in-laws, so what better way to see as much of SF as possible than to run 26 miles through it?  Seems to be a pretty cost and time-efficient and effective way to spend my Sunday morning there.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I have been training for this race, a race that’s a good 6 or so weeks after early June’s Sunburst Marathon, which was about 6 or so weeks after Boston in mid-April.  I’m not planning to break any records in San Fran–just enjoy the ride, take in the beautiful scenery, and do whatever my body will let me do that day–and I am feeling prepared for it.  My long runs of late have been at hilly Waterfall Glen, and unlike my 6 weeks post-Boston/pre-Sunburst, this time around I’ve been doing speedwork… which has left me feeling refreshed (and fast! or fast for me, at least).  So, in all, I’ve been feeling good- confident, happy with what I’ve run in the past 6 weeks, and prepared for this “gap” marathon race.

And then John linked me this article – which, if you haven’t read it, is basically about how balls-to-the-wall challenging the San Fran race is. Great!  ::dramatic eye roll and sigh here::

Not too long ago, I watched the SF course video, which described the first half of the race as “hilly and challenging” but the second part as “fast.”  Thus, going into the race, I’ve been thinking about how I’ll run this as I do for Boston… take it calm and steady for the first half, and then go for it in the latter stages of the race.  Am I nervous for the race?  Not yet.  That will probably come once I wake up around 3 or 4 a.m. the morning of (since I’ll start running around 5:45), and it finally hits me that I’ll be running a marathon that day.  I haven’t thought much about it, at least in those terms, because it seems to have just snuck up on me.

Anyway.  What this article unnecessarily did was dis people who manage to BQ–an ENORMOUS feat in and of itself, mind you–at fast, flat courses like Chicago (my hometown race).  I’ve BQed four times now, and never on a flat course like Chicago, but when people hear about a BQ, they’ll likely ask you where you did it… especially because BQing is such a big deal for a lot of marathoners out there.  But generally, at least in my experiences, people who BQ on hillier courses (like San Fran or Boston) won’t snub people who do so on flatter, faster courses.  That’s just not what it–the BQ or the general running community–is about.

To be fair, I guess the WSJ writer did this slight snub in the context of the SF article, wherein he was talking about how much more slowly (11 minutes+) people have run SF than their usual paces or PRs; okay, point taken.  SF’s hills can be intimidating.  But then, the article goes on to nearly bemoan the fact that so few people sign up for, and BQ, at San Fran because of the course’s toughness–that people are more inclined to run quickly, and BQ, at the pancake courses of Chicago, Columbus, et al.  Maybe he was simply trying to say that SF isn’t as popular a race as Chicago or Columbus or many of the other flat courses out there simply because it’s tough, or because people perceive it to be tough, or have nightmares of having to run up those enormous hills we all remember seeing in episodes of Full House or on the rice-a-roni commercials.  If this was, in fact, his intention, I think the mere insinuation adversely clouded what he was trying to say… probably, that this is a tough race.

Many runners aim to run just one marathon–as a bucket list accomplishment–and once they do it, they’re satisfied.  No time goal, no BQ goal, just completion.  This is true for some, but not all (hi!), charity runners.  For a growing number of runners, however, they do one race, and then get the itch to see how much more their body can handle.  Maybe it means going for a BQ, or simply dropping time, or just racing more intelligently.  To see what they’re capable of, in terms of speed, it makes sense for them to go to a flat course, where they feel they can really rock it and fly.  For the folks who want a challenge with their marathon–who aren’t just satisfied with running 26.2 miles–I venture that they’re more likely to do the more “extreme” marathons…the ones with the net uphill, the trail races, the Pike’s Peak race, races that are known for their hills, Big Sur, Boston, that sort of thing.  To me, these type of marathon runners aren’t any better, or worse, than their counterparts who prefer to stick to flatter courses.  I think it’s inaccurate, if not disingenuous, to assert or insinuate that people who don’t go the “extreme” marathon routes and who, instead, stick to the urban or fast courses, are worse than their hard-core counterparts.

This contention makes me think of folks who argue that trail runners are better than road racers, or that ultramarathoners are better than “just marathoners.”  Honestly, it doesn’t matter.  Just because you prefer one “type” of race, or distance, over another doesn’t mean that you’re a more adept runner.  Hell, it’s like saying that just because you’re a 5k runner and not a marathoner, that you’re not a “real” runner.  Or that half-marathon runners are better than 10k runners.  It’s ridiculous.  The running community’s not about that; more often than not, runners are genuinely excited that people want to lace up their shoes and do something so inexpensive, and accessible, that can do wonders for their health and for their lives.   What we should more worry ourselves about, or lose sleep over, is the growing number of people in the USA who don’t regularly partake in ANY sort of physical activity–running or not–who will surely suffer unnecessary, preventable medical-related illnesses and diseases.  That’s what sports and health writers should be bemoaning… not that people are not “ballsy” enough to take on as challenging a course as San Fran.