Nike Women's Half Marathon

I spent last weekend in San Francisco with a dozen girlfriends also known as my adopted family!

We were there to run in the Nike Women’s Half Marathon.

This is a great race – you run and at the finish there are handsome firemen in tuxes handing out Tiffany’s necklaces.

There are about 30,000 participants so you can just imagine how crazy not just the race is but the city in general. Lots of sightseeing, shopping and laughter happening. This was my second year running it and I wasn’t sure how it was going to be since I was only two weeks out from my marathon. My legs were still a little trashed but since I was not worried about my time, I went to enjoy the sisterhood. A group of us booked and went on a tour of Alcatraz – at night.  Kind of cre It was fun to learn even more about this prison that was only in operation for a brief time! Kind of creepy! It was fun to learn even more about this prison that was only in operation for a brief time.

 

 

The view from the island on the return trip was beautiful!

Saturday was spent walking around, shopping and eating. Then we got to bed early so the morning alarm wouldn’t seem so bad. At the race start I was a couple of corrals back so it took over 20 minutes for me to cross the start line. It was a chilly 50 degrees and foggy so I had a long sleeve shirt and gloves on to start. The gloves came off after 45 minutes but the shirt stayed on for the entire race. I was running a little slower than normal but keeping a steady pace until the hill at mile 7. That’s when I found that my legs were not working well and I ended up walking up most of it.  And since my time in that mile was already slow, I took advantage of the no lines for the port-a-potty. I felt fine the last six miles and was surprised at ten miles to see that I had a chance of beating last year’s time and ended up taking 10 minutes off and feeling pretty good. The finish line needs some work to be more efficient. There are always huge lines waiting for shirts, food, necklaces and firemen so it takes awhile to pick up your drop bag and get something warmer to wear. It’s a fun experience though and well worth doing at least once. The rest of the day was spent—and this shouldn’t be a surprise—resting, eating and shopping! With the Bart workers on strike, it was an adventure getting back to the airport but I did and made it home without much else happening. It is nice to be home and back to a routine. Not sure about you but my eating gets a little out of hand when I am traveling – so much good food to try.  It was nice to see this box in the mail at home - 

It's my first Kona Kase with samples of all sort of healthy sports goodies.  I tried the banana snacks last night and they were pretty good. This morning my race weekend weight is almost gone again and I am ready to tackle another race on Saturday, one of my last two triathlons of the year. More later!