Sunday, July 31, 2005

San Francisco Treat

ORN 7/31/05: San Francisco 1/2 marathon: 2:57:30

What a day! I wasn't crazy about a 5AM start [yikes] but I wanted to give myself plenty of time to finish. The course this year featured an out-and-back across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was cool and foggy [hey, it's San Francisco!] but after the killer summer we've had in Chicago it felt fantastic.

The first hour or so was in the dark. In some places is was SO dark that having a flashlight or headlamp would have been a good idea. My guess is that several hundred people took advantage of the early start option, so we had a small but lively group.

It didn't take long for the leaders to overtake us. And after that it was like someone had opened up the flood gates. The "early" runners and walkers moved to the right and let the speed demons go through. It was actually fun to see the faster folks.

Crossing the brigde was a treat. Although it was so foggy that you couldn't see ANYTHING, we knew where we were and how lucky we were to be there.

I ran/walked a 5/1 interval most of the time. I had decided that I would walk the uphills and run the downhills no matter where they fell on the run/walk interval. It was the perfect plan and I finished feeling fantastic.

I give the race HIGH marks for orinization. Everything seemed to be done very well. I would recommend this race to anyone who likes cool, hilly, races.

Waddle on, friends.

John

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hi john...

i ran the SF Marathon with you and fellow Penguins back in '96 or 97'??? i remember we started an hour before race time. it is a wonderful "cool" time to run during hot summer day. so good to see you writing in blog format. as always, i really enjoy your thoughts. take care...Allan