Nike Women's Marathon, We Run SF!

(See these two posts before: The Day Before, The Morning Of)

The Race: October 20th
(Bear with me. My recaps are long and I'm trying to sync up between three sources: Nike Running app, official Results, and iTunes)

The race started off like any other: my goal was to get out from behind the throngs of people. This, of course, made my first mile my fastest at 08'42''. YIKES. I was focused on passing people and getting warm, and most of the first mile was downhill anyways.... but still!

My music started off a little wonky - it was playing alphabetically instead of shuffling. I couldn't have any of that, so I fiddled around with it and accidentally paused my tracking and blahblah but basically didn't get my music set up until 10 minutes later (thank you, Last Played column of iTunes!).

Hook 'em! :)

I'm at the very right of the picture, in green!! Found it on the Nike Women's FB page.

Looks like I'm leading the pack in that picture, right?? :D

My mile splits are as follows:

Take this with a grain of salt. I quickly realized my mile markers were off at the halfway point, by just under a mile.

From the above, my first 3 miles were at a 09'02" pace, but as you can see below, my 5K time came in at an average of 09'56". Something's off! I'm definitely going with the 5K time here. This was done in darkness, as the sun didn't rise until 7:24am.

Official time! I know this is right. (The pace times are the average, overall time.)

From Mile 3.0 to 3.5, there was a small hill - about 71 feet of elevation. This wasn't bad and I only slowed down a little bit. It finally was getting a little lighter, but no sign of the fog lifting. I had my sunglasses on my forehead and was wondering if I'd ever use them.

More Hook 'em signs!

Right at Mile 5.9 there was this HUGE hill. HUGE.

The massive hill. Taken by Nike.

Ish. 

Official time

Climbing 240 ft in .9 miles. I mean, just look at that lovely view! We could see everything - the beach, the water.... oh wait.

After the hill, we had a nice downward slope until about mile marker 8. The downhills were where I made up a lot of my time, and I probably went down them with much more gusto than I realized. My legs were reallllly in pain by the end of it, and I'm sure I should have been a little softer on those downhill sprints. But my mind was on the time, always the time... so I figured slowing down on the uphill meant I had to speed up on those downhills. Remember it's my first marathon, y'all...

Apparently, according to nikeplus.com, I was the fastest around Mile 7.4. It's strange that I sped up almost 2 and a half minutes from Mile 7's average, but looking at the elevation and how hard I was pushing those downhills, it made sense.

Miles 8-9 were another huge hill - starting at around 72 ft and topping off at 232 ft right along the 15K marker.

Official time

On the downhills, my pace was in the 8s. From the 15K marker to Mile 10.4 it was alllll downhill. We went from 231 ft to sea level in a little over a mile - wow! I definitely felt like I was flying.

Mile 10 marker, allll downhill. Another Nike Picture.

I was still shocked by how many people there were around me. I kept dodging people, I even elbowed a few accidentally. I just wanted to get out of their way. Maybe that's why I started out so fast? I'm used to running by myself, so I'm really not used to running with a lot of bodies surrounding me. I think it was kind of a contact high, as well.

I was feeling pretty good at this point - I kept trying to break up the race into different sections (I never really succeeded at keeping a breakdown) and I think at Mile 10 I was thinking, Okay, I've just done a 2 mile warm-up and then an 8 mile out-and-back (which means just 4 miles and then back), and I just have to do the 8 miles two more times and then I'm done!

This mentality didn't really last long, but it kept me sane.

At mile 11, the half marathoners broke off from the marathoners. That was a strange point in the race - I guess I was surrounded by half marathoners, because once I went along my unique path in the fork in the road, I felt alone. So alone that I wondered if I was going the right way. And it was so weird that the split was at Mile 11, because I couldn't even think "Halfway point!" to myself yet. This is where the mental game really started for me.

Starting at around mile 11.5 was one of the last hills, but thankfully this one was pretty gradual.

At around mile 12.5 was when my Nike plus came on and told me I was at the halfway point. Uhhhh NOPE. That was discouraging, thinking that I'd be probably about a mile or farther away when it thought I was at the finish line. LE SIGH. It was at this point I knew my tracking was off and was a little annoyed.

Looking at it, since I was in the park, my GPS probably failed and was just completely off - by like, a mile - for the rest of the run. Greeeaat.

Finally we had reached the halfway point, but it didn't feel like it. I felt like the real race was just beginning.

Fog, Fog, Foggggg. Nike Pic.

I was now running with only the marathoners, until Mile 15 when we briefly met up with the half marathoners as they finished their last mile of the race. I knew we were running close to the finish line, which was super discouraging - a little voice in the back of my mind chirped up and said, You could just finish right now.

But I thought, Then all of this would have been for nothing. Keep going.

Thankfully, most of Miles 14 and 15 were at a slight downhill slope. It was around here that I noticed the 04:30 pace group and tried to keep up with them, or stay slightly ahead of them. Throughout most of these downhill miles, I was ahead.

Mile 16 was the start of the Great Highway and the real beginning of my mental and physical struggle. I knew it was an out and back the whole remainder of the race (I could have sworn that we went around Lake Merced at one point) which is a huge internal struggle for me. Granted, I had 10.2 miles to go - but even breaking it up into ~5 miles out, and ~5 miles back was hard.

It was a little more than 2 miles down the Great Highway alone, and I dunno about you, but that's a long way to run without any nice beach to look at. Sure, there were spectators, but too many of them and you'll really start to not notice them, you know?

I did notice the elite runners running on the opposite side of the road and thought it was cool that I was witnessing several Boston Marathon qualifying runs.

I was feeling pretty good at this point. I knew I was ahead of the pace group. I was cruising at a pretty fast pace for having been running for 15 miles (though at this point in the race, it was pretty flat), and I didn't really have any pain quite yet. The aid stations were great - I would stop at every other one for some Nuun, and along the Great Highway I grabbed a handful of pretzels for the salt, and had a couple more Clif Shot Bloks in addition to the ones I was already carrying.

The Great Highway Miles

After the 30K mark, we curved around to run alongside Lake Merced. (This was the only point that I put on my sunglasses!) All along Lake Merced, until you got to the turn-around point, were the slightest uphill. But at this point, the second the hill started to slope upwards, I felt it in my hips. My right hip, specifically.

I wanted to keep running until Mile 20. I had that point bookmarked in my mind as the point where every step after that would be the longest run ever. I wanted needed to run constantly up to that point for my mental game. Thankfully I succeeded - I saw the little time marker that said Mile 20 and mentally told myself, Just an hour more to go. Which may or may not have helped.

After Mile 20 is when I started to walk. My right hip was killing me, it was so tight. I battled for a few strides whether or not I should just start running really slow, or straight up start walking. I was afraid that if I started to walk, then I wouldn't be able to start running afterwards. After a few seconds I realized that I just couldn't go on like this, and something had to give.

I mean.. what kind of marathon photographer takes a picture of someone walking?!?

My walk was at a brisk (well, as brisk as I could make it) pace but a walk all the same. I saw the pace group pass me and started to alter my goal to just finish under 5 hours. As soon as I started to feel some relief, it took a couple more paces to convince myself to start running again, with no idea of how it would feel when I did.

Thankfully running again wasn't a problem. The first few strides were strange feeling, but I got my pace back eventually. I tried not to walk again, but had to after Mile 21 as well.

Thankfully my pace only slowed about 10 seconds!

We were at the turnaround, and it was a straight shot to the finish line. I just had to go up one more massive (to me) hill and then I was home free.

I grabbed an extremely green banana (ugh) between Miles 22 and 23, walked more at the hill in Mile 23, finally made it to the beach portion of the miles (at Mile 23.5), and knew I just had to keep going and not stop.

After the 40K mark, I was listening to LoveGame by Lady Gaga, and suddenly I heard no more. Nooooo!! I looked down at my phone and pressed the button- nothing happened. I tried to fiddle with the on/off key. Nothing. No! No no no! Had my phone really died at the 40K mark?!? With 2K left to go???

So, it was just me and my thoughts at this point. I ran for a little bit with my headphones in but then I figured it was pointless so I took them out and wrapped them around my left arm. Some dude yelling encouraging words yelled at me - "Ahhh, she took her headphones out! Wow!" If only he knew that it was not by choice.

The only weird thing about the Great Highway miles were that people were just crossing the course as they pleased. I kept thinking I'd run into them. I hope I didn't subconsciously slow down to make sure I didn't... I swear, a surfer with a surfboard crossed right in front of me once. Like... dude. There's a marathon going on here. And it's foggy as fuck. Can't you postpone your surfing for a day??

Anyways. So, I ran. And ran. And ran.

Attempting to smile, with no music.

I couldn't even see the finish line, it was so foggy. Spectators kept telling us that it was just beyond the stop light, but I couldn't see any stop light. It was strange - as I approached, the crowd of people just kept looking denser and denser.. so dense that I wasn't exactly sure, from far away, where I needed to go. Of course, once I approached it became clear, but it wasn't very comforting to think that there wasn't much of a spectator fence. I kept thinking I was going to elbow someone.

In pain. Look at those people just... standing in the course. What.

Sooooo close.

Finally, I saw the stoplights (you can see them behind me in the picture above) and saw the Finish Line. I decided to sprint. Now you can see my "I'M IN PAIN" face!

The prettiest I have ever seen my face.

I sprinted, and sprinted, and sprinted, and finally crossed the finish line.

The look of relief.

I never know - which of those pads records the final time? Because I've clearly run over the first pad and the time says 04:52:28, but my chip says 04:52:29. 

What a beautiful face!! >.<

Thinking, "It's over!!"

I DID IT. I did it, I did it, I did it.

With no headphones, my ears were attuned to everything. I heard a distant "Hayley!!" and looked to my right, and saw JW standing right there at the finish line, waving towards me!

He had gotten there 2 minutes before I crossed the finish line. He had been texting me (so had three other people - I had 14 text messages waiting when I got my phone to turn back on) and had no idea if I had already finished or not, because he was running late and the tracking on the Nike site wasn't really working on his iPhone. He just happened to get to the finish line, wait for 3 minutes hoping that I was still running, and there I was!

Trying my best at a Run, Eat, Repeat pose - but I can't lift my back leg at all. Hah!

I got all my goodies and kept up with JW while we walked through to try and find an exit.

I look manic. And I'm wearing the space blanket wrong, go me!

The rest of the day and the rest of our trip is here!

Race Morning

(Read The Day Before post!)

The Day Of: October 20th

On October 20, I woke up with an intense feeling of "OH MY GOD I AM LATE WHAT IS HAPPENING!".. what a way to wake up, y'all. If you haven't experienced that jolt of adrenaline in the dead of night then you don't know what you're missing!

My problem was that my phone is "old", in tech standards - it's an iPhone 4S, and it's more than 2 years old. It's been doing this thing where if it has less than 30% battery life, and I try to open an app, it dies. Once I connect it to a power source, or even wait and try to turn it back on again, it successfully turns on and says I have 30% - so it shouldn't be crashing!! Anyways. The only outlet in the room we were sleeping on was blocked, so I had to plug it in in the adjoining room. I had no way to check what time it was, and knowing how early I was getting up (4:30am), I knew it would be just as dark at midnight as it would be at 4:30, so for all I knew, I was running late.

I got out of bed and checked my phone - nope. Midnight. I got back in bed and tried to sleep more. It worked - for two hours. I woke up in a jolt at 2am, got out of bed, and fished around for JW's phone by his side of the bed. He had set an alarm for me in case I didn't hear my phone in the other room. I turned it on - 2am. Two and a half more hours of sleep.

I got back in bed and set the phone by my head. I jolted awake two hours later- 4am. Just a little bit longer! At 4:25, I couldn't stand it. I shut off the alarm, shut off my phone's alarm, and decided it was time. Eep!

I got out of bed and ate a banana with a cinnamon-raisin bagel. I was nervous - so, so nervous. I felt like I might be sick I was so nervous. I immediately regretted the banana, and wished I had something to go along with the bagel - I ate it dry. I drank a cup of water but was worried about drinking too much (I was like a fish the day before so I wasn't worried about being dehydrated) so after one glass, I was done.

I was worried about it being so cold - it was about 48 degrees that morning and I was wearing my short sleeve Nike tee and capris. No gloves, no hat... gah. I was hoping that sheer adrenaline and other people's bodies would keep me warm.

My gear that morning

I requested Uber for the first time. Unfortunately, about 5 minutes before I requested it, the pricing was normal, but at my request time, it was surge pricing. Damn. Oh well.

I got picked up around 5:30. The driver was nice enough, we just made stupid small talk for the 10 minutes I was in the car, and I was grateful for not having to deal with credit cards or tip. The whole trip only cost me $5 because I got a $10 discount for using the code Nike gave me! Awesome.

It was so cold. SO. COLD. I was dropped off at Bush and Mason, so I just had to walk down on Mason to Sutter street and walk back to Taylor street to get into my proper corral. For some reason I thought I had chosen the 9:00-9:59 corral, but in hindsight I was glad I didn't.

Pace Corral Bracelet

It was around this point that I knew I needed to fill up my water bottle and use the rest room, and it was early enough that there wasn't a line for either. I walked up to a Nuun station and was about to pour a few cups of water manually into my bottle, but one of the volunteers offered to fill my bottle up for me. Yes, please! It was super nice of them.

Marathon bib and fully loaded water bottle: check!

I thought it was funny that we were by the Theater District...

Not sure if I'm ready???

Attempting a smile??

I walked down to where the other runners in my corral were setting up, and the waiting game began. The attempting to smile picture was taken at 5:46am, so I still had a long time to wait before the gun went off, and an even longer time to wait before we would start running. But there was nothing else to do except stretch and try to keep warm.

The start line: so far away! (the finish line: even farther..)

Looking behind me

I awkwardly asked a lady to take my picture and wasn't sure what face to make, so the below picture was the result:

Excited? Nervous? Not sure....

The above was taken at 5:58am. I'm really bad at stretching things out. I crammed tons of pictures in a 12 minute time span, when I had almost 45 minutes to kill. However, I did have a method to my madness... I was worried about my phone dying. Remember my rant about my phone? Well, thinking about it running the Nike Running app for 4+ hours plus running music plus people texting me during...

I tried to put my phone on Airplane mode but then when I opened Nike Running, it told me to turn on Wifi to get access to data. I was too worried that it wouldn't work at all, so I just didn't bother with airplane mode.

You see my sunglasses? I used them ONCE. ONE time. Stupid fog.

The Start Line was pretty intense- lots of music, a dude that kept reminding us that we were "30,000 women and a Few Good Men" (how fast do you think we got sick of that joke?), and that we would get a Tiffany necklace handed to us by a fireman in a tuxedo at the end (neat), and a constant countdown of how long it would be until the gun went off.

In a twist of fate, (fortunately? unfortunately?) the speaker that I was standing next to was cutting out, so someone came up to it and disconnected it, so it was bliss that we didn't have to listen to the recycled jokes, but I then had nothing to take my mind off of the upcoming race.

My mental game was wishy-washy. I was all over the place. I kept getting weirdly emotional - especially when they had someone from The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society talk about meeting her donor - but I attributed that to the cold (whenever I wrinkled my nose, the emotions would subside). I kept wondering what it would feel like to finish. I kept trying to visualize my goal time and come up with some other minor goals.

I've heard that you should make 3 goals: 1 thing that's gonna happen no matter what (for me: finish the race), 1 thing that would be awesome if it happened (for me: my goal time), and 1 thing that if the sun and the moon aligned and everything went perfectly might happen (for me: my goal time minus 30 minutes). I felt less and less confident about my B goal, and was afraid that I'd think the whole race was a waste if I didn't hit it. I tried not to think about it.

The gun finally went off for the elites. We watched the fireworks and waited anxiously to start moving forward- nothing happened. We heard the gun go off again, and wondered if it was for us. Nope, the 08:00-08:59 group. Then we heard it go off again for the 09:00-09:59 group, and we were finally allowed forward.

Some girls were running to the start (....) while I was taking the time to warm up my hands so they'd have enough heat to register on my iPhone to start my Nike Running app. It seemed to take forever for our gun to go off, but eventually it did. It felt like another 2 or 3 minutes before my feet crossed the Start line and my race began. (Looking back at my times, I crossed the start line at 00:24:36, meaning it was 6:54am!)

This was it!

Arial view of the start line. Source: Run Nike Women Series FB Page

Check it out: THE RACE. (I know, I know.. but I'm known for my novel-sized recaps, so bare with me.)

The Day Before

Y'ALL! I'm back from my trip! Our plane landed last night at 10:20pm and we were EXHAUSTED, and I had a massage scheduled for 10:30am this morning, plus a meeting at 2:15, so this post had to be postponed (pun intended) until those things had been taken care of. Now I'm relaxed and ready to recap!

The Day Before: October 19th

Ready to go! Wearing my new Stitch Fix scarf, sweater, and bag. 

On Friday, our flight to San Francisco was scheduled for noon. It was SO foggy, so my mounting anxiety of the plane being delayed and not being able to get to the Expo was almost past the breaking point. 

The fog outside the airport

Little did I know that this would be but a TASTE of the fog I would experience on this trip. More on that later...

On the airplane!

Thankfully, everything went off without a hitch and we got to San Francisco with time to spare to get to the Expo.

Nice and sunny in San Francisco!

The Expo was SO loud and crowded - that plus both of us dragging around our carry-ons didn't really help with the mobility issue. The overall impression I got of the expo was that it was crowded and there wasn't enough space. People were standing in line to get free stuff. Free stuff. What?!

Granted, I've only been to two Expo's - but both of those were in giant warehouses where the vendors (probably about 100 vendors, not 10 or 20) could set up and have a TON of space, garner a bunch of face time with potential customers, and you could stay there all day. Maybe it was because we had just gotten off the plane or maybe I was anxious for tomorrow morning, but as soon as we got to the Expo, I really wanted to just leave.

The signage wasn't that great, and we started going in through one of the back entrances of the Expo (with our bags, remember) when we were told that Packet Pickup wasn't on this side, but on the other side. Despite the huge Packet Pickup sign on that side of the street. 

The only cool thing that I felt like I got were a pair of purple shoelaces because I had run between 1553 and 3106 miles (2500K - 5000K). Woot! But, getting the shoelaces was troublesome... there was a really narrow queue to walk through, and then there were what looked like cash registers at the end of the queue after you got your laces.. what?! I thought these were free?

But then I saw that they were scanning your marathon number to see if you used the werunsf app, and if you did, you got another gift - nail polish stick-ons. I ended up having to get out of the line to get my marathon number from JW, who was holding it for me, and then force my way back through the end of the line to get the nail polish. Which I ended up not wearing anyways.

Overall feeling of the Expo: It just wasn't made for however many runners there were scheduled to be there. It was so small, so cramped, and I felt like I was in a club because the music was so loud. It left a bad taste in my mouth. 

We exited the Expo feeling slightly annoyed, and almost immediately I panicked because I thought I was supposed to get a shirt in my bag (My very first half marathon, I forgot to pick up my finisher's shirt and had to get it mailed to me for $10) - I had to go up and ask someone, but they told me the shirts would be given out at the end of the race. If only some kind of check list like, "Do you have your: _______" had been passed out, I think I would have felt a little more at ease.

We were staying at Cecelia and Steve's apartment, who JW knew from high school. Their apartment was about three miles from the start line. I started to wonder how I'd get to the start line the next morning, but Nike put a coupon for Uber in my packet, so I decided I'd use them for the first time. Cecelia approved it and said it was the only way anybody really got around in San Francisco - I was excited to try them!

For dinner, we went to Little Star Pizza, a wonderful pizza place in California.

The Deep Dish Pizza we ordered! Source.

I really would have loved to have some wine to go with it, but I abstained. I figured it wouldn't be great for the next morning. I had two slices and was pretty full! Carbs, carbs, carbs.

Then we went to Bi-Rite Creamery and Bake Shop, which was DELICIOUS. I needed some things for breakfast the next morning, so it was awesome because their market (Bi-Rite Market) was in the same store. They're absolutely crazy about giving away samples - not only samples of the ice cream, but samples of the food as well!

Source.

They're famous for their Salted Caramel ice cream, but I opted for a scoop of the Ricanelas, which is cinnamon with snickerdoodles, on a sugar cone. SO GOOD!

Then we went home, which involved walking up a HUGE hill, and I put together my race gear while the others chatted about the stock market and the future of technology and such. I got in bed at 10pm- I think all the tech talk wore me out ;)

Next up: Race Morning!