San Francisco Marathon

San Francisco Marathon Thoughts

Sunday, I ran the San Francisco Marathon with about 6,000 other marathoners and tens of thousands of half marathoners on the front/back halves. The morning sported perfect weather, a fun & challenging course and with only one small blip for me, (a row of locked porta-lets at the 6th mile) great race coordination/direction.

I never cease to be amazed by the myriad of people who do marathons. Short, tall, fat, skinny, young, old, male, female, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, (no offense if I am not using the right “race” synonyms), guys with turbans, a guy in a joker hat (the same guy who ran at Badwater), people running for a cause, people running in memory of a lost one, pretty, ugly…the list could go on. The point being that unlike any other sport, I think running and marathons bring out the melting pot that we are all sitting in ! All it takes is two shoes (or foot gloves or even barefeet), a little preparation and a race fee.

The common thread? The desire to challenge one’s self. Out of the 6,000 or so people who ran the marathon, only a small handful or so actually ran because they thought they could win. The rest were there for community, self improvement and challenge.

One stupid moment during the race. Kids on the race course! About mile 16 a 3 year old girl toddled across the course.  Smiling and kid-oblivious to the fact that the fastest 10% of the racers were barreling down on her.  Right in front of me.

Her slack jawed mom? Laughing.

“Watch out Kayla.”

WTH? Really?

My mom and dad would have rightly beaten me with a running shoe then tied me to a tree if I did that as a kid. A guy behind me had the same reaction. He got aside of me, a man of 50 or so and said he was not even looking at the road pacing behind me, saw me slow and shake my head as I side stepped oh so cute Kayla with the dumbass parents.

“Was that what I thought it was?”

“Yup, some poor kid with poorly constructed idiot parents.”

“I saw you slow down and almost tripped into you and then I saw the kid…did you see the parents?”

“Nope…but I heard mom laughing and telling her to watch out.”

"Unfluckingbelievable."

I am hoping little Kayla did not get injured that day…or caused a runner to get hurt because of her bricks for brains parents.

My race? Not too bad. A 3:33:53. I had been planning on a 3:22. What happened? Welllllll…without going into the details, lets just say I had to take several breaks in one of those cool green phone booths with the nice comfortable seat.

Apparently, experiments with about 5 lbs of produce and a juicer the day before was an epic fail in the judgment area for me.

Still, I finished 585th out of the 5,900 or so runners that finished.

I gladly donated $60 bucks to HouseofHeroes.org as I pledged $5 for every minute over 3:22. 

Final note: Back to running. Lots of people spend loads of money on gym memberships, expensive gym equipment at home, D List Celebrity Exercise DVDs, blah, blah, blah to lose weight and get exercise. For $99 bucks on a pair of decent running shoes and a little time investment, running or walking will out do almost anything you can pay big money for to get in shape…Get out there!  You can do it!