Tag Archives: san francisco

Nike Women’s (Half) Marathon – Third Times the Charm

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This was my third year running the Nike Women’s Half Marathon. You can read about my other times running it in 2010 and 2011. Both had their pros and cons, but this year was all good!

Leslie & I before the race

A few weeks ago, my friend & fellow SCE member, Leslie, decided to bid on a raffle entry. She won and we decided we run the race together. I was using it as a training run for CIM and she just wanted to have fun. We decided to run it as a “fun run.” We ran the Presidio Cross Country Challenge a few weeks back and the hills destroyed me. Leslie and I decided to do some hill repeats in the in between weeks and thank goodness we did! (More to come on that).

Friday afternoon we headed up to pick up our race packets and we were in and out of the expo. Then Sunday, October 14, it was race day. I had my alarm set for 3:45am (yep) and I woke up pretty easily. I had an egg and a piece of toast (my new favorite pre-race meal) and headed off to pick up Leslie. We got to the city very easily, found a great parking spot, and jumped into the Hilton for some pre-race potty breaks. Then we headed to our wave and waited for the race to start.

so … many … runners!

It was cold and dark but not too bad. We started but had a very slow first mile just navigating the crowd. 25,000 runners ran the half & full this year, so lots of dodging. After that we settled into a nice pace and just had a good time. After a quick bathroom break we were through the Embarcadero, past Pier 39, and heading up the Presidio hills. I felt great on all of them. Yay for hill repeats working! We passed lots of runners going up the hills, which made us feel great. The race was flying by!

Runners conquering the hills

Feeling strong!

Soon we were in the beautiful neighborhoods outside of the Presidio and again climbing the hills. We had both forgotten the hill in mile 9, so that was a little rough but in mile 10 you get to fly downhill. Before we knew it we were zooming down miles 9 & 10 and about to head into Golden Gate Park. This year they skipped the Chocolate mile (good, I want my chocolate but it’s not fun to hold on to it while you run). And we sped into the finishing line (final mile 7:04). I pulled out my Miles for Mokie sign (it had fallen off my back around mile 9).   I held it up as we crossed the finish line. Official finishing time: 1:48:36 (unofficial removing the potty break: 1:47:41). In fact six of our miles were under 8 minutes. This was a course PR for me and knowing that I wasn’t super pushing myself, just having fun, I was stoked!

Miles for Mokie sign I wore on my back.
It got wet from the fog & fell off, so I held it across the finish line…

Holding Mokie’s sign

Leslie & I at the finish

 

Leslie and I made our way through the finishers area, picking up our Tiffany’s necklace and a lot of other goodies (including a full bottle of Neutrogena sunscreen and a yoga mat). We jumped on a shuttle (ok we shivered in line waiting but no biggie) and headed back to Union Square. After a quick change of clothes we were off. Getting in & out of the city was super easy this year!

so many goodies!

After we picked up some breakfast and came home, I headed out for 7 more miles to complete the 20 miles on my training plan for today. Surprisingly, I also felt really good during that run, averaging just over a 8:30 mile.

Heading out for my 2nd run

So in conclusion, this was my favorite NWM experience yet. And this is definitely a race to run with friends! So much fun!! Oh, NWM you have won me back over :)

 

The SF (2nd Half) Marathon

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Another race recap on the blog is happening now! This past weekend I ran in The SF Marathon for the second year in a row. Last year I ran the first half of the marathon (which I didn’t blog about, but I’m guessing that’s because I had such a rough race, hello dehydration) and this year I completed the marathon course by running the second half. Yep, you can run the first or the second half of the course, pretty cool huh? The first half begins at the Embarcadero, goes along the coast, across the Golden Gate Bridge, up and over some gnarly hills, and ends in Golden Gate Park. The second half begins in Golden Gate Park (surprise!), winds through the park, heads down Haight, and winds back up along the coast by AT&T Park and ends in the Embarcadero.

The weekend started early when I woke up at 5:30am to drive up to South San Francisco and catch a BART to take into the city (avoiding parking in SF = happy Meg). Why so early? Uh, so I could run with running legend Bart Yasso in his shake out run. There was about 10 or so people who showed up, including SF Ambassador and my friend Alisyn. The pace was slow, so we kept a little ahead of the group. After we headed to the Lululemon run, but that was a little more overwhelming. So my new running friend, Renee, and I took up to run to the expo (a nice 5 1/2 miles total for both runs).

Bart & Me after the shake out run

At the expo, I picked up my bib and made an easy change from Wave 3 to Wave 2, as well as got a sticker confirming my participation on the Half-it-All Challenge (more on that later). Then I headed over to the Tech Center where I met Monika for the first time in person. Monika is also a SF Ambassador and makes tutus for GlamRunner. Several people that I know from various online running communities were wearing a tutu in the race, so guess what. I decided to do so too. I picked up my tutu and high tailed it out of the expo to avoid buying any tempting (yet expensive) running gear or registering for yet another race. The rest of the day was filled with shopping and errands and picking up Kevin’s uncle from the airport.

Race Preparations

The next morning I was up before 5:30am so that we could head out with plenty of time to spare.  My friend Pat graciously volunteered to drive me up and drop me off at the start line. We made amazing time and got to the start line with plenty of time to spare. After biding my time in the car, I headed out to start line and Pat took off to meet his buddy who lives on Haight. I got the start line and found several warm heating lamps to keep us runners warm on the cool, drizzly, foggy morning. (What a great idea! Kudos to that genius!) I chatted with some other runners who had traveled from San Diego and Colorado. And soon enough it was time to run.

I really wanted to set a new PR even though my current one is just two months old. A part of me feared that 1:45:44 time was a fluke and I needed to at least run it again to prove that it was real. I also wanted to run a steady race, as my last one was very fast in the first half but I struggled in the second half. I knew that if I wanted to get 1:40 I needed to maintain a 7:38 per mile pace. I tried to keep around that but ended up averaging a 7:48 pace. But I kept my pace very consistent, my fast mile 7:28 and my slowest at 8:11 (1st and 3rd mile respectively). But most of my miles were really in that 7:40-7:50 range. I ran strong the entire race and felt really good (such a difference from last year!). And I felt strong on the hills as well (of which there were a few more than I expected). In the first half I had kept near a woman running a similar pace (she kept me going in the park) but I moved ahead of her after the 6 mile marker. Oh and I saw Monika in her tutu briefly in the Park.

Running through Golden Gate Park (my hair was driving me nuts!)

After the leaving the park, we headed down Haight. I loved running through the crazy famous neighborhood. I saw a sign that said “That “clif bar” you just ate was really a special brownie, welcome to the haight!” (or something like that). And we got some nice downhills through this section. Then I was running in areas of SF that I don’t know well and we had less crowd support, expect for the Lululemon crew you cheered us on. Around mile 10 or 11 I had a little side cramp, but I focused on my breathing and pushed through.

We came up to AT&T Park and I knew there was only about a mile left. So I gave it my all. It wasn’t my fastest mile, but still a strong finish. And I easily had negative splits in this race, woohoo!  I had taken my head phones out around mile 11 just because I like to hear the crowd and runners toward the end. As I reached the finish, I heard Pat yell my name. I couldn’t give my normal yell back but I really appreciated the cheer! I thought I would finish in the 1:42 range, but I just missed it and crossed the finish line at 1:43:03 (95th woman overall and 28th in my age group). This race granted me both the confidence that I can run for 13 miles under an 8 minute pace and a shiny new PR (by almost 3 minutes!).

Coming up to the finish line in full tutu regalia!

After I finished, I received some nice hardware. The SF Marathon started a new challenge last year where if you run both half marathons in consecutive years, you receive a special “Half-It-All” medal. It’s a pretty awesome medal and spins to show both the Golden Gate Bridge and the infamous Haight/Ashbury cross street. Then Pat, his friend Sean, and I headed from some post-race breakfast bagels and coffee.

Post Race Bling

 

I love the SF Marathon (and would love to run the full… 2013 maybe?). The race is very runner friendly with clearly divided waves, great organization, lots of water/electrolyte/calorie stations, and good volunteers. I love that we get to run so many different parts of the city. They also have this cool SF Ambassador program (just in case you didn’t click on the earlier link you can learn about the program here). I’d love to one day also be one (shameless begging happening here!). But seriously, this was such a great race experience and I highly recommend participating in one of their events.

US Half Marathon Redux

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Today I ran the US Half Marathon in San Francisco for the second year in a row. I went into this race knowing that it would not be a fast race. But I had enjoyed the race last year (despite all the rain), so I decided to run.

Prior to today’s race, I hadn’t run more than 5 miles since the NWM on October 16. I had bronchitis through most of October and took about 9 days off of running. I did a few short runs this week, but nothing that really counts as training. I was a little worried that I would still feel a little sick today, but no cough, no sore throat, no runny nose, woohoo! I felt good the entire race, my legs got a bit tired (mostly sore feet) but that makes sense considering my lack of training. I am happy to report that I beat my last half marathon’s time by about 7 minutes so I feel pretty good about my performance.

Thankfully, today was fall back and even though I woke up at 4am I was able to get about 7 hours of sleep (maybe the most before a race). I headed up to San Francisco, easily found parking, and made my way to the starting line. There seemed to be many more runners than last year, but maybe that was due to the rain last year. The weather was perfect, cold and clear morning. The city and bay looked great and provided their normal wonderful scenery as I ran. I had planned to do the “run 1 mile, walk 1 minute” plan. I ended up running 3 miles, walk a minute, run a mile, walk a minute, run 2 miles, walk a minute, run 2 miles, walk up hill, run 3.5 miles, walk a minute, run a mile, walk a minute, run to the finish. This was due to how I felt and the congestion of the Golden Gate Bridge.

So apparently due to Presido Park Project, the race organizers couldn’t use their previous race course. What this meant was that runners were only able to use the west sidewalk of the Golden Gate Bridge and we ran up the Marin Headlands (yikes!).  Having 5000 runners on one sidewalk on the GG Bridge wasn’t fun. There were a few bottlenecks and I stood without moving for about 4 minutes (I included this when figuring out my race time, as far as I can tell chip times haven’t been posted yet). I have seen/heard a lot of racers complain about this and no it wasn’t fun. But you know, I’m glad that we were still able to run the race and use the GG Bridge. I felt like the race organizers did a good job of communicating this change and it was beyond their control so it was bottlenecks or no GG Bridge. I was less excited about running up the Marin Headlands but running down and seeing the breathtaking view made up for it.

I made my way back and crossed the finish line to retrieve my metal water bottle (I love that they do this!) and my medal… oh wait no. I guess there was a snafu in the medal manufacturing and they made the medals for the April race. So we will have our medals mailed to us. I also heard a lot of complaints about this too but it sounds like it was out of the race organizer’s control. They announced it at the beginning of the race and offered discounts to future races (that to me was enough to cover the mistake). Last year they mailed my shirt to me and I received it fairly quickly, so I’m confident I’ll receive the medal in due time.

 

Overall, I’m pretty happy about today’s race. It wasn’t fast but better than my last race and makes me think with some training I might (fingers crossed) be able to finish the Big Sur Half Marathon in 2 weeks under 2 hours.

 

Nike Women’s (Half) Marathon… Take 2

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Last year I ran the Nike Women’s Half Marathon (NWM) for the first time (read about my experiences at that race here). I loved running the 2010 NWM and couldn’t wait to run it again this year. The NWM is a lottery race but they opened several thousand spots for college students, so I was able to secure my spot in the half marathon through that opportunity. Despite all my excitement, I’m sad to say this is not a race experience I enjoyed as much as 2010.

For those who follow me on dailymile, you know that coming up to this race I had been disappointed with my training. I had run the San Jose Rock n Roll Half two weeks before (with my father-in-law) and had hoped to amp up my runs between the two so I could improve my time. (Somehow with the wedding and school, my training for the SJ RnR had also suffered and I ran a slower half.) But life continues to get in the way and I was too busy to get many runs in and also got sick (I found yesterday I have bronchitis).

But did I let this get me down? No! I drove up to San Francisco three days before the race to pick up my race packet and pick up my goodies. My experience at the expo was better than last year, no lines and not many people – one of the perks of going in the afternoon on a Thursday. I was a little disappointed in the lack of goodies and samples, but nothing to complain about. What I have learned since then is that when I picked up my bib, the volunteer didn’t scan it and therefore I currently have no official race results (more on that later).

At 4am on Sunday morning I somehow rolled out of bed. I put on my Big Sur tech shirt (I thought a little mental reminder that I ran a marathon would help me power through the NWM). I had a little bowl of oatmeal and a bit of coffee and headed out to the city. I arrived around 6:20am, just what I wanted and parked on the street easily. I stopped in the Union Square Hilton for a potty break (much better than a port-o-potty) and headed out to Union Square. I brought a gear check back so I could change into some warm, non-sweaty clothes immediately after the race. In hindsight, I really wish I hadn’t done this. The gear check was a mess, a mob of people surrounded the gear buses and the runners were all trapped in this mess. Finally after 30 minutes of wading through people I got my stuff checked and tried to make it to my wave. The race had already started but I was in the third wave and thought I might be able to make it. No luck. I got through some people, but got stuck in what I think was a 12 minute pace wave (boo). Some nasty girls wouldn’t let me through and I tried to explain to them what I was doing. Here is the convo:

Me: I’m sorry, I’m just trying to get my wave.
Mean Girls: Well, you should have gotten here earlier.
Me: I did, I drove from Santa Cruz.
Mean Girls: Well, you should have left there earlier.
Me: I did! I got here almost an hour ago, I got stuck in bag check.
Mean Girls: <rolls eyes>

Sigh. So 17 minutes after the race officially started, I finally crossed the starting line. I would spend the next 8 miles weaving through the crowds, avoiding those who walk the NWM, alternating between sidewalk and street, and zig zagging across the streets adding about a mile to my overall distance.

While I had a grumpy start, I couldn’t help but be happy as I ran. The NWM has a beautiful course and I enjoyed it just as much as I did previous years. The first 7 miles or so, I was averaging between 8 and 9 minutes miles and feeling pretty good. But then my lungs lost it. Did I mention I ran this with bronchitis? So I slowed down considerably and looked to just finishing the race. This meant more walking than I would have liked, a lot of coughing, and stopping at each water station.

I got excited when I saw the volunteers handing out the Ghirardelli chocolate squares, because I knew that meant it was just over a mile until I crossed the finish line (and that I could eat the chocolate soon!). I finished well over 2 hours :( But I finished. I was disappointed to see my time wasn’t immediately posted but not a biggie. I waiting in a line to have my photo taken with my “medal” (yep, another tiffany’s necklace!). But the line was long and then I saw the firefighters were in the photos too and I thought that was kind of weird. So I decided to skip it after all and get my gear. Picking up my stuff was painless, I slipped into my warm, non sweaty clothes and took the shuttle back to Union Square. An hour and a half later, I was home.

For the next few days, I continued to check for my official race times. Nothing. Finally, I emailed the official time keeping company, Pacific Sports Events. A very nice man named Jon promptly replied to my email and said that while my bib number had been tracked, my name was not in the system. What?! I have since learned from other NWM participants that if the volunteer did not scan your bib at check-in, you were not in the system. Awesome. (Note my sarcasm.) But Jon at Pacific Sports is updating the records so I’ll have results. Apparently Nike isn’t doing much to rectify this problem (and it seems I’m not alone here).

Overall, I still enjoyed the event because I just can’t complain about running through those parts of San Francisco and there is something amazing about knowing your running with 20,000 other runners. I think Nike was much less organized this year and didn’t prepare their volunteers as well as they did last year. I am happy to have another Tiffany’s necklace (although personally I like the 2010 design better than the 2011, but that’s just my taste). But for the cost of the race, I’d like to see things run more smoothly.

I Heart San Francisco

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I have always loved San Francisco. But lately, I feel that our relationship has been growing into something more profound, more real. The more time we spend together, the happier I am. Seriously though, in the last month or so, I’ve spent more time in SF than usual, and it really just makes me happy.

The last couple of races I have completed have been in the city (NWM and US Half). This meant not only did I run through a beautiful city, I also got to spend the night there, and eat yummy food (there are so many good places to eat! I think I would enjoy SC so much more if there were more restaurants).

But that’s not all I’ve done in the city. In the beginning of October Tawny (one of my oldest friends) and I visited the De Young. Thanks to my good friend and past co-workers of the CCAE for the passes. We slowly meandered through the multiple exhibitions, ending with some more contemporary pieces that I adored. Glass rain drops from the ceiling = beautiful. Then we headed to the De Young tower, experiencing some amazing views of the city. It would have been more enjoyable had it not been for the airplane show that drew crowds of people to the floor of the tower. But, eh, such is life.

Then on Saturday, again with Tawny, some of her friends, and Kevin, I headed back into

the city. This time we jumped aboard an Alcatraz ferry for a night tour of the infamous prison. This is the third time I’ve visited “the rock” but the first at night. The audio tour is the same as when you visit during the day, but there are extra talks offered (we saw the end of the prison door demonstration, the door slamming the first time left a real impression, but after about five times it was just overkill). You also have the opportunity to tour the prison hospital, any old medical equipments ups the creepy factor of an abandoned prison. Finally, the views of the city on a clear, November night are simply breathtaking. I’m fairly sure all our time outside ate up our audio tour time and prevented us from making it on time to any of the extra talks. Oh well.

This last time, Kevin and I walked through Little Italy (or whatever they call it in SF) in North Beach. I had never spent time there and I found it just lovely. And the best part? So many Italian restaurants! Yum!

escaping Alcatraz

Don’t worry, San Francisco, I’ll be back soon…

 

*thanks to Tawny for letting me steal these photos*