San Francisco Half Marathon Recap

10 years later, I completed my 2nd half marathon!

I definitely won’t let another 10 years go by. As I’ve said often, I think halfs are the sweet spot for training because your long runs never take more than about 2 hours and you aren’t wiped out for the rest of the day (vs. training for a marathon). I’m going to do a 10k as soon as I can (I can bust out 6 miles pretty easily) and perhaps another half marathon this fall.

This time, I’m positive I wouldn’t have finished as fast as I did if it hadn’t been for my two best friends pacing and encouraging me. Following my setback, I wasn’t able to get in enough long runs (or short runs, for that matter) to really feel prepared for the event. Last time I trained, I also did more track work (including speed work) and trails (for hills) which I think showed vs. my mainly treadmill + some outside longer runs.

The results? 3920 out of 7386 1st-half marathon finishers, and in the top 46% for my age range? I’ll take that. 🙂

My 5k was at a 10:15 pace, and the first 7.5 miles at a 10:30 pace. So you know the end was what killed me. When I saw the “13 miles” sign, I swear that .1 was the longest 1/10 of a mile I’ve ever run.

Here’s me 10 years ago:

Here’s me this weekend:

Not too many big changes except I definitely like to wear my hair in a ponytail when exercising. 🙂

One new thing from this time around is some knee pain, the first I ever remember experiencing while running. Sad face. It’s much better today and I hope it quickly goes away – it’s about 80% better already.

Some highlights from the SF Half Marathon:

• My alarm clock went off at 3:45am to get ready for my 5:42 wave call. I had a 15-minute walk to the start line as a warm-up.
• I didn’t run with a fuel belt this time, but I would probably consider it next time – I like drinking water at my own discretion on long runs, but I’m glad this time I wasn’t carrying anything.
• I ate Clif Bloks to fuel (Orange and Cran-Razz to be exact).
• Running across the Golden Gate bridge was one of the things I was looking forward to the most, but it was crazy foggy that morning. And the bridge was much longer than I remember. So. long. But I’d do it again.
• The weather was almost perfect – for a SF summer, it was quite mild and I only felt cold post-run and on one of the hills.
• We started off way too fast at the beginning, which is normal, but I wish we could have held back a bit and saved up a bit for the hills.
• The hills. Jeez. The other half marathon I did only had three hills from what I remember and they were tame compared to the hills in this course. My knees are not happy.
• Post-race, I thought things were really organized – medal, space cape (to keep warm), pictures, and then quite a few refueling options (Coconut water – yuck, yogurt, bananas, Lara bars, etc.) and then the shuttles back to the start were all well-organized and efficient!
• The pre-race expo – though it got crowded, it was nice and there were some cool freebies that I looked forward to since I can’t just walk into a Road Runner Sports whenever I want to (the SD location was great).

I’d definitely recommend this race to anyone wanting to come to SF for a good race. Next year it will be in June (June 16th to be exact) and registration is already open!