San Francisco Half LBRR

First, for the record, Silas and I ran about 5.5 in :46 on Friday evening. A slightly longer version of this loop, and I threw in a couple of surges at interval pace on the way back.

I woke up at 4:00 this morning to pick up a couple of folks and drive to San Francisco for to run the San Francisco Marathon (First Half). My training has been inconsistent, but I was signed up for the Wave 1 start (sub-1:29), so that was my goal for the race. I parked easily and jogged around a bit after checking my clothes, then found DAB at the start. The SF marathon has 2 companion half marathons, covering the first and second halves of the course and starting a few hours apart. We started with the marathoners at 5:30 on a cool and foggy San Francisco morning on the Embarcadero. Dean Karnazes said a few words (something like "Who's going to run under 3 hours?" - DAB cheered) and we started. DAB, who is in much better shape than me, still didn't have a race plan and said that she'd just run with me and keep an eye on the women at the front to decide if she wanted to make a move.

The first few miles were along the waterfront, and mile 1 felt slow but split at 6:29. Foolishly, I took this to be a good omen. I dropped DAB accidentally but decisively (or she dropped herself) on the first hill of the race, around mile 3, and took the downhill pretty hard, but my third split still read 7:02. I picked it up a bit as we ran along the north side of the city towards the Golden Gate Bridge, but not a lot. We began to see signs posted along the course, Ron Horn style but classier, with inspirational quotes from the likes of Mohammed Ali and with trivia about San Francisco (did you know that the Golden Gate Bridge goes uphill in both directions? This is done via a system of hydraulic pumps that were devised for the 1906 World's Fair. Unfortunately, the great earthquake that year forced the fair to be moved to Milan, and the world never learned about this amazing feat of engineering. Except for the poor schmucks running it today).

Although we were technically running over the Golden Gate at dawn, the fog was so thick that there was no indication that a sun existed. In fact, I just realized that I was looking west for the sun, when I suppose it was probably somewhere to the east of us.

After the turnaround at the other side of the bridge, I looked over my shoulder and saw DAB about 50 meters behind. She had apparently decided against making a move. This was around mile 7, and my legs were feeling it - the big hill leading up to the bridge, plus the dual uphill nature of the bridge itself, were taking their toll. I decided to slow imperceptibly to allow her to catch up so I'd have someone to hang on to. Unfortunately, I continued to slow imperceptibly after she caught me, and before long I was, imperceptibly, on my own again. By that time, the marathon 3 hour pace group had blown past me as well, and they were out of sight in the fog. I passed the 10 mile mark in the Presidio at about 1:13 into the race and did some quick math - if I could manage the last 5k in 21 minutes, I could still break 1:30. I have no idea why I believed this to be true.

At this point, we finally got some downhills to run, but with all the fog and mist the road was too slick to really get much of a boost from gravity. We continued through the Presidio, and across to Golden Gate Park. At the 12 mile mark, I realized that I could still look respectable at the finish, and picked up my pace a bit for the last 1.1 miles. I crossed the finish line at 1:35:16 and was quite glad to be done. A 2 mile cool down with DAB (who came in 5th) and stick a fork in me.

This was my 5th, and slowest, half marathon. My best was in Philly last November, when I ran 1:24:40. First, the excuses. This was a legitimately hard course! The winner, who ran a 16:04 5k earlier this year, only managed 1:18 for this race. I came in 79th place, among over 2000 men, which I consider a pretty decent finish. Realistically, though, I don't think I passed anyone for good after mile 3, and I was passed by plenty of folks over those last few miles. In fact, looking at the 7.4 mile splits, almost half the people who finished ahead of me passed me in those last 5.7 miles. My training just wasn't up to snuff, as I knew going in. June was a solid month, with 153 miles, 5 hill workouts, and 3 long runs, but instead of building on that in July I pretty much imploded. Only 1 week with 30 miles, and 1 tempo run. I had a sore ankle, I didn't feel like getting up in the morning, and I didn't try to get long runs on the weekends. I'm going to have to consider whether I'll run a marathon this fall and decide whether I can be serious about getting the mileage that I need. I'll have to give that a few days (or weeks) of thought before I make up a plan.

On the plus side, while I was writing this the Cardinals had a 5 run inning to beat the Brewers, so my Cubbies are now 1/2 game out of first place in the rockin NL Central. I think this will be the year!