2:16:25, or Hold Onto Your Hats!

I ran my first half- marathon this morning! It took 2:16:25, about 10:25 mile/min.

Not too bad, particularly given the hills! That’s about the pace what I wanted to run, and now the quest is on to beat my time later this fall in San Antonio, where the course is flat.

Probably my biggest challenge today (other than persevering at the end, when my legs just wanted to slow down), was keeping my hat on my head. Sounds silly, I know, but it flew off twice -- once on the Golden Gate Bridge and again near the end of the race on 27^th Avenue. Fortunately, I didn’t get mowed down trying to retrieve it and nobody stepped on it. Phew! My hair isn’t quite long enough to be in a ponytail by itself, and what does fit in a hair band is pretty tiny. So sans hat, I would’ve been wiping sweat and hair out of my face – ick.

Come to think of it, I was also dexterously challenged. Just before mile 12 I felt my energy level drop (despite having gooed it up at the halfway point), so I whipped a mini-Clif bar that I had gotten at the expo yesterday out of my Camelback (love that thing), but then I couldn’t open it! Although my core was warm, my hands were fairly numb and, even using my teeth, I couldn’t grab the edge of the wrapper to pull hard enough to open it. I feared the bar flying into the air and hitting someone or, let’s face it, landing on the ground where I couldn’t eat it. Well, the bar did hit the ground, but not before I got it open. Disaster averted! I finally managed an opening large enough to work the bar through. Next time, I’ll open the bar before I ever leave the house and cut it into pieces to facilitate eating it.

Overall, the race was fun and really well organized. I loved that we started in staggered waves (versus San Diego, where we were segmented into waves but everyone started together). The only thing that didn’t work very well was after crossing the finish line. They herded us into a narrow corral to hand out medals and it was complete gridlock. You couldn’t move anywhere and, since I had somehow managed to “sprint” the end, I needed to keep moving so my muscles wouldn’t seize up on me. Alas, I was literally trapped among a sea of sweaty runners.

But we managed to inch our way forward and out, find a bus and get back to the car. After a stop at Starbucks for coffee and the restroom, we were off. Amazing, I was home by 10am!