2007 San Francisco Marathon
There's nothing quite like standing in the drizzly San Francisco fog at 5:30am on a Sunday morning, staring down the throat of a 26 mile footrace. The predominant thought in my mind was "what am I doing here?" The theory sounded great: run the marathon at an easy pace, treat it as a long training run.
Then reality came crashing down. Maybe some marathons can be "training runs", but not San Francisco, with its hills and wind. And only five days of tapering also sounded better in my head than in real life.
Nevertheless, when the starter sent off the second wave at 5:32, I shuffled my feet right along with everybody else. The first quarter of the race is the easiest, along the Embarcadero, through Fishermen's Wharf and out to the Marina. I fell into a comfortable pace around the 3:10 pace setter. I certainly felt capable of running faster, but didn't let myself get carried away.
Once we hit Crissy Field, the wind started blowing in off the ocean. I actually picked it up during this portion of the race, moving up the field from runner to runner in search of some cover. Soon, we started our climb up the hill to the Golden Gate Bridge, and that's when things started to deteriorate.
Besides the hills, and the incline of the bridge itself, the wind really picked up. My past experience has been that the subtly rolling terrain and the wind can really drain you if you're not careful. I let my pace drop back down, and a couple of people passed me, including a guy I had met at a trail race a couple of weeks ago. We talked briefly -- he was trying to BQ, but had thrown up the previous evening's meal at 2:00am. I was thinking, "that sucks, at least my stomach is holding up."
And of course, that's when my guts started to cramp up. I blamed the cold wind that was blowing right through my little shirt, but for the most part it wasn't too bad. I was hoping it would let up once we got off the bridge, and it did, although my problems came back on again, off again while we wound our way through the Presidio into Golden Gate Park. Shortly before that, the 3:10 pace group caught and passed me.
I was banking on the park being wind protected, but it wasn't really. I was tempted to make the time-swallowing pit stop, but kept putting it off in the hopes that things would improve. I definitely lost time whenever my stomach cramped, but it came and went in waves, so I tried to tough it out.
Finally, at mile 16, I had a particularly bad episode and decided to give in. I made my first pit stop during a race, ever, and looking on the bright side, I figure it's a valuable experience for future races. Maybe I should practice pit-stops the same way triathletes practice transitions? I figure I lost two to three minutes, but what the hell... not like I was going to PR. Not by a long shot.
Even afterwards, my guts didn't feel 100% but they made it through the rest of the race. Despite my fairly conservative pacing, I felt pretty tired by the time we left the park at mile 19. Unlike last year, when the last 10K of the race were just a (painful) blur, I took in the sights and sounds of Haight street, and even spotted a drag queen crossing the street. Vintage San Francisco.
The last part of the marathon is through some pretty decrepit parts of town, with some hills thrown in. I managed to keep running through it all, although going downhill proved to be tough on sore legs, as I remarked to another runner. It really is a difficult course: by the time you get some nice downhills, you can't take advantage of them.
I played a mental game, not letting myself count down the miles until I hit the 23rd mile marker. Almost there! The sight of the ball park sped me up, and by the time I caught my first glimpse of the Bay Bridge (which is where the finish is), I knew the end was near. As the crowds grew in the last half-mile, I found the strength to speed up a little bit and caught another runner about 100 yards out.
Final time: 3:17, my second worst marathon time ever (but still 8 minutes faster than my 2006 time). I found the guy trying to BQ at the finish line, and he hadn't made it. We agreed that San Francisco is a deceptively difficult marathon course.
I now have exactly six days to recover and put Humpty Dumpty together again before I jump right back into regular training with a 70 mile week.
