San Francisco Marathon

Leading Up To The Race
So I strained my right calf on a training run about 2 weeks ago. It was still hurting on a short run last week Friday. I have not ran at all since then. So coming into this race, I was fully prepared to drop out and take a DNF. It was somewhat demoralizing to be hurt to the point where I couldn't run. I spent the week or so leading up to the race just doing weights, working on the core, and drinking caffeinated drinks. I've all but eliminated daily caffeine consumption. I've been having lots of GI issues during marathons. Since both my gels and Nuun contain caffeine, I figured I would condition myself to be used to it.

Travel and Expo
I flew out of SNA to SFO on Southwest. It was only my second time out of that airport. I love going to airports... even LAX. Once we landed in SFO, I took my annual ride on the BART. I took it to the Embarcadero station to catch the expo shuttle just outside of the Hyatt. The expo was a madhouse. After picking up my bib and shirt, I made my way over to the RunRacing booth. It's good to have friends that have a booth. I was able to drop off my backpack and get back into the crazy expo.

Chicrunner "pretending" to be busy for my picture, looks like she's shuffling cards. :)

After surviving the expo, I took the shuttle back to the Hyatt. I walked over to my hotel, Grant Plaza hotel, in Chinatown. It was a pretty old hotel with very rickety floors and it smelled like a Chinese restaurant, but there was no restaurant in the hotel.

Welcome to Chinatown

Scary elevator

Food and People
I went back out to eat lunch at L&L. If I come back next year, I'll definitely need to fit in the pho challenge at Pho Garden. But I don't want to do it by myself. After lunch, I walked over to Walgreens to buy some juice and water. On my way there I thought about stopping in Murphy's to get a beer or 3. On my way back to the hotel I stopped at the Paul Frank store. I thought about buying a Skurvy with glasses shirt but they didn't have my size.

Murphy's Pub

I relaxed in my hotel room for a few hours watching Braveheart before going to the Marathon Maniacs carbo-loading dinner. It would appear that across the street from the hotel, an old guy plays a weird Asian sounding stringed instrument ALL DAY from sunrise to sunset. It reminded me somewhat of vuvuzelas and that Asian lady singing that original theme song in the Spiderman movies. We had our meet up at Caffe Bella Venezia. We had 20+ people there. It was fun meeting so many maniacs. But for whatever reason, our food did not start coming out until almost 2 hours later. Mine did not, so I wished everyone a great race and bailed. The restaurant was just not ready for a marathon weekend. On my way back to the hotel, I stopped to eat in Sushi Rock, which was right across the street. I had seabass shioyaki, chicken katsu, and shrimp tempura. It was ok, good enough for a backup carbo-load meal.

Race Day
Nothing new on race day. One of the best advices. I bought a pair of the Injinji compression socks. I was going to wear it for the race especially since I strained by calf. But when I put it on, it was too big for my chicken legs. There was no compression whatsoever. FAIL! But since I'm well prepared, I had brought along a pair of regular toe socks. Next time I'll just bring the 2xu or Zensah calf sleeves. I met up with some of my RWOL friends and headed over to one of their office near the starting line to use the nice bathroom.

My main goal was to just finish the race in time to check out of my hotel and catch my plane. You know you're in for some serious hurtin' when your A goal is 5 hrs!
Goal A: 5 hrs
Goal B: finish first half
Goal C: DNF

1st Half
I stretched out my legs during the first mile to see how the calf responded. It was ok, but I held back knowing that during my last run, it started to hurt after 2 miles. This time it felt normal. But after the first 3 miles, the ankle did not feel right. I tried to hold it together for as long as I could taking my usual walk breaks every 30 minutes. Mentally I was losing it. The only thing that kept me going was me wanting to run across the Golden Gate Bridge. After that I could just drop out at the first half. As the race progressed, I started to run with a grimace. It actually felt better to run uphill. My friends caught me near the end of the first GG crossing. On the return crossing, that was pretty much the last of what my legs had to offer. Helen caught me here, I tried to encourage her to catch the 3:40 pace group. I think she finished 9 minutes behind them. At this point, my ankle was hurting and I haven't made the climb into the park. I took the climbs really slow as the hip was starting to bother me. Surprisingly the back didn't bother me, but that would come later. Being the stupid maniac that I am, I made the right turn at the park to continue on with the marathon. It was good seeing Kristy out there cheering because I was in a foul mood and in a world of pain.
1st Half: 2:04:22

2nd Half
I started doing a lot of walking to ease the ankle and hip pain. I stuck to my usual 3 hr 2nd half plan. There were a few sections where I tried to run with my regular stride, but it just wasn't happening. There's nothing really to report about the 2nd half. The ankle, hip, and lower back hurt. I drank a small cup of beer, walked a lot, and visited a few portapotties. I ran the last .2 in. I saw Steve cheering near the finish line.
Finish: 5:02:28

The Aftermath
I think caffeine might be the source of my GI issues. It was fine this time. But then again I wasn't running as much this time. Anyway, I walked back to my hotel. I took a shower, packed up, and headed for the airport. I bumped into Andee at the airport. She finished over 1 hour faster than me. My flight was delayed so I was wandering around and found her eating with her fiance. I could never eat so soon after a marathon. The gels and stuff always ruin my appetite. But as soon as I landed, I drove over to Mitsuwa to eat some ramen at Santouka. I love ramen.

This marathon madness really won't end until late February or March. These 5 hr marathons are really wearing me out both mentally and physically. The injuries are starting to build on each other. I was getting better with San Diego, but the body is still trashed. Once I get into 2011, things will start to wind down. It has to because I'll run out of money. :)