“Race Report:” The San Francisco Marathon

Posted by Chen

Oh, hello, blog world. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry about that – I’ve been pretty busy doing that whole new-job-thang, which has left little time for things like blogging (and, frankly, running). But today, I’ve resurfaced to tell you about how I ran my 24th marathon this morning and how it also happened to have been my personal worst to-date. It’s certainly not surprising, given that I’ve averaged 22 miles a week since Mountains 2 Beach, in stark contrast to the 40-50 that I’d normally log in a regular ‘thon training cycle. So, as I toed the line at 5:42am this morning, I was actually aiming for a personal worst (which was previously a 4:08).

NAILED IT. 4:11, b*tches!

What was interesting about this race, though, was not how I physically felt. I actually felt pretty OK throughout, mainly because I was purposely keeping a very conservative pace. Logistics, on the other hand, were NOT my friend. Case in point:

• The cab I had called the night before to take me to the start arrived to my apartment 5 minutes early. You might say, well, that’s better than the alternative, and you’d be right. Except that in my rush to get out the door, I completely forgot to grab my bag check bag full of all the stuff I’d need post race, plus the actual plastic bag I’d need to check the extra clothes I was wearing at the time. I only realized this fact as the cab got close to the race, and by then, it was too late to turn back. Great start.
• They had all of, like, a dozen porta-potties in the start area to accommodate thousands of runners. I got there at a decent time, so I immediately got in a line, but by the time I got out, I decided that the lines were too long to try and go again. So I last peed about 45 minutes before I started running, which any one of my runner friends will know is essentially setting myself up for disaster. 

Lines weren’t bad to begin with, but got exponentially worse really quickly

• I obviously had to pee for the first few miles, but I refused to stop at the first two water stops, where there were no fewer than 10 people in line for the small set of porta-potties at each station. It was manageable for a while, until I hit mile 5ish and realized that I now had to go #2. Awesome. I basically had no choice but to stop at the next water stop and spent 5 or so minutes waiting in line. Still, I felt much better once I got out, and I went on my merry way.
• I navigated the hills through the Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge just fine and felt that I was finally hitting a groove, when I looked down at my Garmin and realized that it had stopped timing and was merely showing the time of day. I’ve mentioned before that my Garmin is old and on its way out, but randomly stopping (without the battery dying) was something it had never done before. When I tried to start it back up again, it freaked out and began to stop and start itself every half-second, resulting in a crap-ton of beeping that was highly annoying to not only me, but all of the runners around me. After trying to fix it to no avail for a few minutes, I gave up, turned it off, and locked the bezel for good. 
• I realized after my Garmin died that I hadn’t run a race without data in years. I do EVERYthing according to my Garmin – I adjust pace; I calculate my finish time; I take fuel according to mile splits; EVERYthing. I basically felt like I was running blind for the rest of the race, as I wasn’t catching sight of the mile markers and didn’t even know what time of day I had started running anyway.
• I shook it off and kept going, telling myself that this would probably turn out to be a blessing in disguise, seeing as it would allow me to zone out and just run. All was fine for a while until I took my 2nd Gu and found myself having to go #2. AGAIN. Really?? Luckily, lines in the 2nd half of the race were much shorter, and I was in and out within a minute or two. As I took off again and tried to figure out what was going on with my digestive system, I realized that my stomach has become really sensitive to caffeine this year, as I essentially gave up coffee in January and have only had a cup or two since then. Perhaps I need to transition away from my beloved Chocolate Outrage flavor…

Anyway, lots of other things were less than ideal, but I think you get the idea. I’m still relatively happy with how I paced myself and satisfied with the fact that I never stopped to walk and forced myself to power up all the hills. Finishing was an accomplishment in and of itself today, and I spent the rest of the morning/afternoon with other fellow runners and friends, sitting in the sun, re-fueling, and relishing in post-race beers to celebrate Brandon’s recent birthday. 

We’re throwing up the “W” sign because all three of us set personal worsts today. Go team!

All that said, it’s probably time for me to buckle down and get my $h!t together. Rachel, Sandi, and I will be doing a team challenge marathon in November, where it will be our goal to run a sub-3:30 and also come within 26.2 seconds of one another. Those ladies have some serious speed, so I have a somewhat daunting amount of work to do between now and then. Track, anyone?