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| Me Geeking out on Kara Goucher |
The rest of the race? Memorable, but not in a good way.
Sorry for the photos, but I Only had my nice camera for the expo, and I only got more jaded as the weekend wore on.
Click to continue reading my Review
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| Nike Women's Half Takes over San Francisco! |
I flew from San Diego to San Francisco at 5:30pm Friday afternoon and left at 5:30pm Monday. It was an eventful long weekend
The "Expotique"
We heard that the expo was going to be a madhouse. We decided to play it safe. We got there at 7:30 and waited in line so we can be present when the doors open at 8:00am. It was already packed.
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| The line at 7:30am. |
I achieved bib acquisition at 8:05am and went into the expo. I had the benefit of being one of the first people into that tent, and I was blown away by how stunning the display was.
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| Shock and awe. |
That was when the joint was empty. This was before the place was swarmed by women and overwhelmed by claustraphobia. I freaked a geek when I saw my name cross the screen.
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| I saw my name scroll across and I started screaming! Amazing. |
The place was filled with photo ops. they had a display so you can take a picture in front of the course.
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| Photo Ops! |
The next thing was amazeballs for me. You could make a free hair appointment and get your hair done. Fo' Free. I got there at 8:10am and the next appointment was for 10:45am. I have a feeling that they booked the day up fast. I got pretty hair braids that I sported for the rest of the day.
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| Get your hair did! |
So after a crowded expotique, you could saunter down to the adjacent "NikeTown" where you can load up on some race related swag. As extra motivation to cross the street, they printed all 30,000 women's names on the front of thier building. Niketown was literally calling my name.
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| You can see my name right there! Maria Zimmerman! Right there in the middle! Yeah! |
At this point my mind is going a million miles a minute and I was caught up in frenzy. I can not be held accountable for my group-mentality affected actions at this point. Ok, I bought a hat and a tank top. I got lucky too. By the time I got there, they were rapidly running out of sizes and the shelves were going more bare with every passing second. I grabbed what I could and ran.
THEN I SAW KARA GOUCHER. SHE LIKED MY PHONE.
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| Kara made my life. |
I wouldn't shut up about Kara and all my friends stopped listening to me. Still, It was on my bucket list and I got to cross it off.
Then the race happened and all the glitz wore off. I had to run 13 miles at some point.
The Start
The start wasn't great, but considering there were 30,000 women racing and 10,000 more than last year, it happened without a hitch. I understand that the Boston Marathon bombing changes the rules. I just wish 45 minutes didn't elapse before my corral released. They should tell people a different time to show up because 5:30am running clothes look different from 7:00am running clothes. Just saying. No really. It was wayyyy too cold.
They had these cute oversized orbs to advertise the corral paces. They used whole city blocks to separate the corrals. I've never seen such a large start area. I had to walk a mile away just to line up.
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| The glowing blue thing on the right side of the photo advertised the race pace for this corral. |
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| There were women as far as the eye can see. Tens of thousands of women. |
We wore trash bags to stay warm like the high class fashionistas we are.
The Course
It was cold and foggy. I couldn't see anything, not the bridge, nothing. There were some
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| View from the Portapotty line. |
There is a glaring issue that I will address now. It was too crowded. This was the most crowded race I have ever been in. I was running foot to heel and shoulder to shoulder with strangers the entire time. It was difficult to get around people. There were always people to get around because I think a good majority of women did not properly prepare for this race. It was stressful. The race actually felt quick because of the high amount of mental accuity it took to navigate the weaving it took to get through the course.
Not to mention, people were crazy rude. I can imagine that this race appeals to the casual runner set, but my god, don't walk the center line four abreast and call me names while I politely try to pass through. And don't push me across the finish line either, lady. You weren't the only person that ran a half marathon. Its too bad that there wasn't a finisher photo of that lady pushing me because I was planning on sending a letter.
There were hills. It wasn't as much of an issue for me because San Diegians run hills. I trained hills. It really looked like an issue for everyone else because everyone else walked the hills. This was a huge problem as someone who was trying to get the whole horrible ordeal overwith. It was annoying that I had to walk a little too, just because of the bottlenecking in these areas.
It was a nightmare. too many people.
The Support
There were ample water stations. They gave out chocolate in one area. There was a choir around mile 2. There was a group of amazing break dancers around mile 8. There was a DJ at one point. Some lady played her juke box in another. I saw a man ringing a cow bell. That was it. There was not a lot of stuff to see. This completely surprised me. I thought there would be more stuff. Every other big city race I have ever been too has had more stuff to look at, think about.
I just wish people knew how to stop at water stations. I can't keep complaining about that though. I just need to move on.
The Finish
COLD. It was too cold. At least they had space blankets for the participants. This was the first time I've seen space blankets for half marathon finishers. Usually that is a Marathoners privilege. I'm sorry I don't have a photo, I was cold and tired and upset because a Lady Pushed Me. A fireman in a tuxedo handed me a blue box with a Tiffany necklace in it. Its not like you knew the tall man was a fireman. I asked to make sure. He said he was. He qualified it by saying he was a Bay Area Marine Fireman. I believe it. He COULD have been an actor pretending to be a fireman in a tuxedo, but I'm just glad some guy gave me my necklace. Again, I didn't get a picture. C'mon. It was just a guy.
They also gave finishers shirts at this point. You had to get your bib scanned before you got through the whole finishers shoot. It caused a lot of delay. For someone whose blood sugar was dropping rapidly, this was a big irritating problem. I was only a few steps away from a banana, pineapples, and chocolate milk, but my bib needed to be scanned because they didn't believe that this sweaty irate person just ran a half marathon.
It was a cold hard world at this point. You had to drudge through another merchandise trap, AKA the "finishers Boutique" where, if you were lucky, you could snatch up an $80 sweatshirt to keep you from freezing to death. If they had your size. Which they probably didn't after the first 2 hours.
I heard from someone who heard from someone else that there may have been massages, but that sounded unlikely. I saw a long line of women huddled in the fog in the far off distance, and that might have been it. I didn't want to risk it.
I didn't buy a shuttle ticket because 20$ seemed astronomical. I was with a group of people and our plan was to meet and use the Uber app to order a car to tote us back to our hotel instead of the start line. That was a nightmare. We would order a car, wait the 20 minutes, then have our car canceled. We had 3 cars canceled. One of my teammates was worried about catching her flight. We could not even pay someone to drive us out of that situation. We ended up walking 20 blocks before a friend of a friend's daughter drove from palo alto to pick us up. I heard that one of my friends that took the $20 shuttle had to wait in line for 2 hours.
That long walk probably broke up all the lactic acid because my goodness, I feel just dandy the next day. Its like I didn't even run. Its a miracle.
The Swag
I got a yellow shirt and the best medal I've ever owned. I don't want to take it off it is so shiny and beautiful. I've never understood the hype about running for the medal because you just can't wear them in real life. This race doesn't have that problem because the necklace is beautiful.
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| The necklace and the cute box it came in. |
It feels really unlikely that I would run this race again. It was expensive, a huge hassle, and not that great a course or race experience. The necklace is cool, I'll give em that. But I can get my money's worth chancing for a PR next time.