...fit
...free
...chased
...trendy
...a triathlete
...seen
...a role model
...a rockstar!
There are many reasons why I run, but today I ran to be a finisher at the Nike Women's half marathon. I've gone the last few years to cheer on my friend Charlene as she ran toward the finish, but I never really thought about running THIS race/run. Last year I was already running a half marathon the same weekend so running Nike wasn't an option, but this year a friend kindly gave me an extra bib she had won. Anyway, most women know this race as the one event where firefighters dressed in tuxedos hand you a tiffany's necklace at the finish line, and although I like the necklace, I honestly didn't even know what Tiffany's was until a few years ago, but I had quite a few friends planning on running the event so I was excited to join them.
The festivities started on Friday when Katie, Laney, and I headed to the city to pick up our bibs and check out the wall of names outside of Niketown. Unfortunately, I registered later than I think they printed this because we failed to find my name, but it was still cool to see. After we found Katie and Laney's names we headed for dinner and then out of the city anxious for sunday to come.
Now this race is HUGE, thousands of people come from all over the country to run this race, especially runners with Team in Training. The race benefits leukemia and lymphoma cancer research and gets a great crowd of charitable women and men out.
We headed out at 5:15 in the morning, stopping to pick up one other runner along the way. After parking, dropping our sweat bags and making a pitstop at the bathroom, where I ran into my friend Nicki (Yay!), I wished her luck and we were off to the insanity that is the start line. Now Nike is not an easy course by any means there are many hills and many of them are steep (1, 070 ft. of elevation by my garmin), but it does start with a nice gradual downhill at the beginning as you race to dodge as many people as you can (reminds me almost of bay to breakers).
Mile 1: 8:05
I tried to hold back a little because I knew a fast start without a warm-up meant much pain to come. We came out Union Square and headed down to the water.
Mile 2: 7:42
My legs felt like crap, they were heavy, but I tried to keep up with Laney and still give myself plenty of room to breath.
Mile 3: 7:44
The weather feels great as we cruz across the embarcadero with the first few hills quickly approaching.
Mile 4: 7:46
Made it over the first two bumps and they felt awful, which means the rest is going to be painful (I have trained for hills big time, I just had nothing in my legs)
Mile 5: 7:49
Decided it was time to see if a GU would do the trick, but all the people cheering kept me going and without any piriformis pain I was going try as hard as I could to keep going.
Mile 6: 7:58
GU still not kicking in and here is the big hill up to the bridge. I'm usually pretty confident on hills, but not today. Fortunately, I ran into a familiar face when I ran into Amy cruising alongside Crissy Field.
Mile 7: 9:06
Survived with no walking and tried to just get the hills to pull me down
Mile 8: 7:28
I was really feeling awful by now, because my stomach decided I needed a porta potty and my piriformis decided to get pissed off at me.
Mile 9: 9:47
There were walk breaks here, my stomach and legs were killing me, but as people started passing me I knew I needed to push through, all the great cheerleaders got me going again.
Mile 10: 7:47
We started heading toward the park and back downhill. I'm going to label this mile the Tease mile, because you get to see all the finish line festivities and then you are rerouted back uphill through Golden Gate Park.
Mile 11: 8:28
I pushed through, no pain was going to hold me back I only had 2 more miles to go. Here I saw Nicki which really pushed me to keep going and make it to the finish.
Mile 12: 8:13
Now a little bit of an up and then down, down, down to the finish line, but not before I grabbed my Ghirardelli Chocolate and headed toward the finish
Mile 13: 7:24
I tried to push hard to the finish giving the last bit of everything in my tank.
The last .14: 7:02
Necklace, banana, bag, protein shake (which I wish was chocolate milk, but I'll take what I can get), and prayers of no GI tract issues (success!)
Despite how awful my legs felt I really enjoyed my time on the course! My finish came at 1:47:00 which is not my best, but not my worse, but pretty awesome considering the course. Next, we headed to breakfast at Beach Chalet and finally home after a long traffic filled car ride. Tonight, I have a date with my trigger point roller, ice, and a cupcake. Great job all you ladies and gentlemen that were out there today! Now what do you run to be....?
...free...chased
...trendy
...a triathlete
...seen
...a role model
...a rockstar!
There are many reasons why I run, but today I ran to be a finisher at the Nike Women's half marathon. I've gone the last few years to cheer on my friend Charlene as she ran toward the finish, but I never really thought about running THIS race/run. Last year I was already running a half marathon the same weekend so running Nike wasn't an option, but this year a friend kindly gave me an extra bib she had won. Anyway, most women know this race as the one event where firefighters dressed in tuxedos hand you a tiffany's necklace at the finish line, and although I like the necklace, I honestly didn't even know what Tiffany's was until a few years ago, but I had quite a few friends planning on running the event so I was excited to join them.
The festivities started on Friday when Katie, Laney, and I headed to the city to pick up our bibs and check out the wall of names outside of Niketown. Unfortunately, I registered later than I think they printed this because we failed to find my name, but it was still cool to see. After we found Katie and Laney's names we headed for dinner and then out of the city anxious for sunday to come.
Now this race is HUGE, thousands of people come from all over the country to run this race, especially runners with Team in Training. The race benefits leukemia and lymphoma cancer research and gets a great crowd of charitable women and men out.
Mile 1: 8:05
I tried to hold back a little because I knew a fast start without a warm-up meant much pain to come. We came out Union Square and headed down to the water.
Mile 2: 7:42
My legs felt like crap, they were heavy, but I tried to keep up with Laney and still give myself plenty of room to breath.
Mile 3: 7:44
The weather feels great as we cruz across the embarcadero with the first few hills quickly approaching.
Mile 4: 7:46
Made it over the first two bumps and they felt awful, which means the rest is going to be painful (I have trained for hills big time, I just had nothing in my legs)
Mile 5: 7:49
Decided it was time to see if a GU would do the trick, but all the people cheering kept me going and without any piriformis pain I was going try as hard as I could to keep going.
Mile 6: 7:58
GU still not kicking in and here is the big hill up to the bridge. I'm usually pretty confident on hills, but not today. Fortunately, I ran into a familiar face when I ran into Amy cruising alongside Crissy Field.
Mile 7: 9:06
Survived with no walking and tried to just get the hills to pull me down
Mile 8: 7:28
I was really feeling awful by now, because my stomach decided I needed a porta potty and my piriformis decided to get pissed off at me.
Mile 9: 9:47
There were walk breaks here, my stomach and legs were killing me, but as people started passing me I knew I needed to push through, all the great cheerleaders got me going again.
Mile 10: 7:47
We started heading toward the park and back downhill. I'm going to label this mile the Tease mile, because you get to see all the finish line festivities and then you are rerouted back uphill through Golden Gate Park.
Mile 11: 8:28
I pushed through, no pain was going to hold me back I only had 2 more miles to go. Here I saw Nicki which really pushed me to keep going and make it to the finish.
Mile 12: 8:13
Now a little bit of an up and then down, down, down to the finish line, but not before I grabbed my Ghirardelli Chocolate and headed toward the finishMile 13: 7:24
I tried to push hard to the finish giving the last bit of everything in my tank.
The last .14: 7:02
Necklace, banana, bag, protein shake (which I wish was chocolate milk, but I'll take what I can get), and prayers of no GI tract issues (success!)
Despite how awful my legs felt I really enjoyed my time on the course! My finish came at 1:47:00 which is not my best, but not my worse, but pretty awesome considering the course. Next, we headed to breakfast at Beach Chalet and finally home after a long traffic filled car ride. Tonight, I have a date with my trigger point roller, ice, and a cupcake. Great job all you ladies and gentlemen that were out there today! Now what do you run to be....?
