San Francisco Marathon: State Number 2

Well everyone I am back!

Washington has started well (the few hours I have been back at least) after a fantastic week in San Francisco for the San Francisco Marathon! I am glad to be back, but also a little sad to have left San Francisco behind. I have always had an affinity for California and especially San Francisco. If you ask me “Why?” I cannot give you a reason. I do know this though, I will be back someday for a visit (and possibly to run the marathon again!), that can be said for sure!

If you are reading this you may know of my ventures to conquer a marathon in each of the 50 states. The San Francisco Marathon was my second in the last year and the first step towards completing this goal! A week ago when I landed at San Francisco International Airport, I had my doubts that this would be the beginning.

For those that may be finding their way here for the first time, or those who need a reminder, I have suffered from IT Band issues for the last 4 months. I have slowly been getting back to running, but have only been running a couple of times a week, with the longest run in the last many months being 6.6 miles two Sundays ago. I was woefully unprepared for the San Francisco marathon and do not in any way support running one on the training I have done these past few months. I walked into last Sunday, filled with doubts of finishing. I did not know what running a marathon would do to my knee, or to me.

I traveled to San Francisco with my friend Michael Thompson. Both of us planned on running the San Francisco Marathon, and only one of us did. 6 weeks ago we would have thought it would be him that ran this past Sunday, and not myself. In the last month he has been suffering from a stress fracture in his right shin and unfortunately had to pull himself out of this race. I hope that he gets back soon, we both know how hard a decision it was for him to make. We do know that it was the right one for him to make at this time. I will go back with him if he wants to run the marathon himself though, and do it gladly. While down in San Fran we met up with a former teammate of ours Haley Nemra. She is down at school in the area and allowed us to crash on her floor for the week. We are so grateful and had a blast catching up with her! Thanks Haley!

After catching up with her on the first day in town last Friday, Michael and I made our way down to the expo, which was my only complaint about the marathon. The expo was a bit of a let down for me because I LOVE expos. I love spending hours walking between the booths, talking with different people about running. I didn’t feel the need to do it at the expo in San Francisco. It was small, but I understand why it needed to be, it was a small area to have the expo and according to Joe Whelan, one of the San Francisco Marathon Ambassadors, the expo last year had too many booths. Joe and his compatriots though were one of my favorite things about this marathon in particular.

I got to meet Joe on Friday. I had won a wristband from him the week prior, the only catch was that I had to go find him! So find him I did! He was great answered questions that Michael and I had. The other ambassadors and other staff of the marathon have been wonderful since last December when I signed up to run in answering questions as well! It was a very well run organization as it definitely needs to be!

We returned to Haley’s that evening and spent the next day in the area before Sunday was upon us!

We woke up on race day at 3:30 in the morning. That early of a wake up call has only happened a few times in my life, mostly so I could get to the airport for travel, only one other time (in high school) do I believe it’s happened for a race. Good thing I am a morning person. I woke up and was already awake. I pulled on my clothes, an outfit that can be described only as “Completely Brandon.” I chose to run this race in my red tights (which is actually fairly common), with my bright yellow shorts, a technical t-shirt from the Seattle half marathon last year (it is a blue green shirt), with my Bloomsday Second Seed singlet (which is orange and black). I definitely had all the colors of the rainbow on, I hear when Haley first saw me later that morning she laughed, as she should! Obviously my color coordination isn’t the best, it never has been, and I am not going to change it!

My morning of breakfast hasn’t changed in a couple of years as I prepare for a race. Before my first marathon, Skagit Flats, last September, I had to force it down, and didn’t eat nearly enough. This time I was calmer, most likely because I had no expectations for the day. I cooked up my oatmeal with some milk, had a glass of Orange-Strawberry-Banana juice from Safeway (typically orange juice, this sounded better), and some pineapple. Having Michael there really helped me to focus, we both knew I would need all the energy I could get.

I laced up my shoes and grabbed the water bottles for my fuel belt we grabbed the bag we had packed the night before and headed out the door at around 4:15 am. In the bag was a map of the course and the bus routes for Michael, an extra water bottle, Gu packets, and gummies for me. We walked a couple of blocks and caught one of the OWL buses that runs only between 1-5 am. The bus system of San Francisco was easily one of the best things about the trip. We had toyed around with getting a cab for race morning, but decided to go with the buses. The San Francisco public transportation system was great. From the moment we arrived in the city we were able to get anywhere we needed to go using the B.A.R.T. (Bay Area Rail Transportation) or the Muni buses. They rarely let us down, and race morning was no exception.

Making our way down to the Embarcadero we found the starting line. I peeled back my outer layers (a light jacket and some black soccer sweats) giving them to Michael I entered the corral and let him wander down to half a mile into the course to get himself set to cheer me on. I did some stretching and then sang along with the national anthem as we prepared for the start at 5:30.

Weather on race morning was better than anyone could have expected. In my opinion it was perfect. Ideal temperatures of high 50′s to low 60′s made sure it wasn’t too hot or too cold. The infamous wind from the bay that was said to blow around San Fran was gone (only hiding as it was there other days of our stay). The fog that usually hangs over the city well into the morning was higher and we could see the lights of the “mainland” as the annoucers put it. Overcast without any rain capped off the weather making it as I said earlier, perfect for racing.

Promptly at 5:30 the elites were off with my corral shortly behind them 3 minutes later. I started back in the pack so I wouldn’t go out too hard, which would have been the demise of me. Half a mile in I saw Michael and tossed him the San Francisco Marathon wristband that was already making me too warm. After a little cheering from him I was on my own for a while to get into the running of a distance I didn’t think possible.

The longest run in the last few months had come only a week before on an unusually hot summer day in Marysville with my friend Marissa. I knew I could get that far, and probably a little further with the crowd around me. When I got over the bridge and into the park I would make a decision to continue on or to stop and return, defeated to Haley’s place. My plan all along was to run the Golden Gate Bridge and get to the park. I knew walking into the race that morning that I wouldn’t run the whole thing. I knew I would do some walking. I would make a decision when I saw Haley and Michael.

For the first 5 miles my strategy worked great! I ran for 10 minutes then walked for two. I was timing it perfectly with the water stations, which I planned on walking through every last one of them taking water and electrolytes. At 5.5 miles in we came to some hills that brought the course up to the Golden Gate Bridge, which I ran all the way across and back. Afterwords we were at 9.5 miles, where I got some support from friends back home.

I always run with my phone. It was ingrained in my mind as a captain back in high school. I also run alone a lot when at school, if something were to ever go wrong in the middle of a run I want to be able to call someone to help me if I need them. At this point in the race we were starting up another hill. I’d run about 2.5 miles straight and decided to walk a little bit, so I pulled out my phone. I sent a message to both Michael and Haley letting them know where I was before getting into my text messages. Most of the messages were from Twitter and at the moment unimportant. One of the tweets though was important for the rest of the race.

These messages were from Cami Ostman, who had at that point wished the San Francisco marathoners well She is a wonderful lady that I met last fall who is now a good friend, and no stranger to marathoning. She has run a marathon on every continent, check out her blog www.7marathons7continents.com for more info! She is herself now starting a path to finish a marathon in each of the 50 states, it is our hope to one day travel to one together and run it at the same time. I shot back a thank you and updated her on my status in the race and how I was feeling. This began the race long twitter session. It was our second one together. The first time we were talking about her husband Bill. At the time he was running the Boston Marathon as she cheered him on. I was following him via text messages and updating her on his status in the race. So from nearly 10 miles in the race I would pull my phone out and message Cami and others who had text me updating them on my progress through the San Francisco Marathon. Through Cami I was able to connect to both my mom and one of my many other mothers in this world, Linda.

By the halfway point (somewhere in Golden Gate Park) I was on pace to set a Personal Record for the marathon. Of course my hopes weren’t too high on doing it. Here I was a beginner looking to finish the marathon. I was feeling good, but in a few miles I would decide when I ran into Michael and Haley. If I needed to call it quits I would. At this point I was without pain, or even the tightness that I expected to be there. I felt really good about my race so far, so when I came upon Michael and Haley again, I was all smiles! I slowed to a walk for a few minutes as they walked beside me. I took the extra water bottle from Michael’s bag and refilled my water bottles and grabbed an extra Gu from him as well. I headed off on a short couple mile loop before I saw them again at mile 18.

I think this would be a great time to mention the many people that we met along the way to the expo, and the people I met during the race. When Michael and I made our way down to the expo on Saturday (so for those keeping count at home the second time we went to the expo) we bumped into a fellow runner named Claire. She was running the 1st half marathon on Sunday. She helped to get us closer to the expo than we had gotten the day before (we walked about 10-15 blocks from a bus station). I hope she ran well. It was at the very least a beautiful course! Bob was the second runner I met, and I met him about 4.5 miles into the race, he commented on my being ready to play flag football with the strips on my belt. I wasn’t completely sure what he was talking about, but I went with it and ran with him for a while. An older man who had run marathons and half marathons as a younger guy, he was back at it running the first half of the race this year. I bid him farewell and good luck on the bridge, I hope he ran well! The final runner I met was about 20 miles in, just when I needed him, and I hope I helped him as well. His name was Hiro. I hope he finished, I cannot find his race results. This was his first United States Marathon. Oh and did I mention 2 months ago he ran the 89 km Comrades Marathon on May 30th. I really hope he was feeling better after he told me to part ways with him, he was getting pretty bad cramps in his legs. These three runners I hope ran really well!

The whole of the San Francisco Marathon was a great experience. The course was absolutely beautiful and the race itself was really well run. Those of you who may be looking to do a marathon or even a half (the San Francisco Marathon has 2 of those!) San Francisco is the place to do it. The first half of the Marathon starts you on the water and runs along it for a while before taking you up and over the Golden Gate Bridge. You eventually make your way back in to the Presidio and down into Golden Gate Park for a few miles. Then you head out onto Haight Street for the second half before making your way to the finish back on the Embarcadero on the water near AT&T Ballpark.

My stay in San Francisco as far as a vacation and trip was great! There is so much to do there that everyone could find something to do. We walked along the Wharf nearly every day. We made trips through the Mission looking at beautiful murals, down Haight to look at the Hippie section of town, spent a day in the park looking for Buffalo and eating lunch in Kezar Stadium. We walked through the China town, Japan town, Russian city, the Financial District, and found a really long steep staircase. We ate ice cream at Ghiradelli’s and saw cars driving down the most crooked street in the world, Lombard Street. Michael and I got to catch up with a couple of our old teammates, Brett Peterson and Haley. We even were able to enjoy a San Francisco Giants game, even if they lost.

Even though a week ago I was unsure of how my knee would hold up under the pressure of 26.2 miles I surprised myself. I ran a 4 hour 32 minute and 26 second marathon. Adding the second state to the tally and had a blast doing it! Thank you again to all those who prayed and thought about me on my trip!

I want to especially thank Haley again. She was such a blessing for having Michael and I for the week. You really are amazing Haley, don’t forget that. Michael you were great too! Thanks for coming along! I am sorry you couldn’t run, but I will go with you again any time you want! Thank you to all who have read this incredibly long post!

Until next time,

Nobaching Down

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