It was a beautiful weekend in SF! My friend Beth and I left San Diego on Friday afternoon. I had only slept about 2 hours that morning since I had to get up to go with my husband to go sign for our new house before I left town for the weekend. Beth nearly missed the flight and for a minute there, I thought I would be flying solo to SF. Beth and I had such a great conversation on the plane. For the first time, we really got to talk without others around.
We arrived in SF without issues and found our hotel with the help of our totally manic, high strung loony toon of a cab driver. We were actually scared riding in the car with this woman! What a nut! The Marriott was nice and the room had plenty of space for us gals. There were going to be four of us staying in the room. It would be the first time I met Tenille, and Treasure was to arrive on Saturday night. Tenille, Beth and I met up with some friends of Tenille's. What a nice group of gals. We spent the evening walking around SF downtown, found a great place to eat, and froze our butts off! On our return to the room, we ventured down to the jacuzzi tub to soak our legs and let all our worries drift away with the bubbles. The following day, we headed to the expo and had a blast shopping! We got some awesome pictures of us with an extremely tall and buff dude dressed in his underwear wearing an animal mask with horns... Not sure what that animal was! But, that dude was built!!!
The reast of the day was pretty low key as we knew we would be running the next day. Tenille and Beth got spa treatments. I cheaped out and didn't get a treatment as I was feeling a tad guilty about being in SF without the family. We all seemed to sleep pretty well that night but 4am came quickly for all of us. Getting ready in the morning was easy for me as I showered the night before. Some oatmeal, and some coffee and we were out the door. Treasure bought a bib off a gal that planned to run the half. We were going to try to sneak Treasure onto the full Marathon course. She was caught at the gait entrance but we managed to distract the staff long enough to get her in. Beth and I ran together for the first 8-9 miles and when we approached the Golden Gait bridge, the excitement grew among the runners. The area that separated runners from the traffic was a bit narrow, so dodging people to keep pace was difficult. Beth had a goal of 4:30 and I was determined to help her reach that goal. I kept losing Beth in the crowd while I was trying to keep the pace required to pull a good time. When I lost Beth the second time and couldn't find her again, I was really bummed. As the race went on, it became more clear to me that we would indeed have to run this race our own way. The hills of San Francisco are not kind, nor are the downhills. However, the weather could not have been any better with cool misty fog cover for miles. I didn't see the sun until a few miles out from the finish. Passing through neighborhoods, seeing Alcatraz out in the distance in the ocean while running the coast line, and just running for the fun of it really made this race that much more enjoyable for me. Most times, races are just that. A race. A race against the clock, a race against yourself or a race to achieve a lofty goal. Today my goal was to see someone else reach her goal and when that didn't happen, my goal changed to just enjoying the experience. Although around mile 21-22 my right foot plagued me with burning pain, I was still having the time of my life and loving every painful step! Crossing the finish line was relief. Finding my friends after and seeing them all sporting their beautiful and hard earned medals was by far the hi-light of my day (although that post race meal and beer was pretty darn good ;-) along with the post race fabulous foot massage!) A great weekend and a tough but awesome race. I would definately run this one again!!! Happy Running!!
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