I'm a Trojan Warrior

I want to start today's post with thanking everyone who lent me their opinions over the past week regarding my SF Marathon strategy. I ended up adapting Michelle's suggestion of a distance goal (10 miles) with a caveat that I'd play the rest by ear. So how did the race turn out yesterday? Alright everyone, I'm surprised and ecstatic to announce that I finished the race without being injured! Well, at least not more injured than I normally get after a race like that. I'm waddling around the office today, but at least I have a ridiculous grin plastered all over my face.

I don't have any action pictures or official race times to post, but I will be sharing them as I receive them. My unofficial time, according to my iPod, was 3:12. Yes, it was over the race limit. But, I think it was close enough to 3 hours so they still recorded the time and didn't open the roads yet. Not to mention that I wasn't dead last, and there was still a horde of people behind me. Hooray! Anyway, I'm not going to give you a play-by-play of the race like I did last time, but I do want to share all of the highlights (postive and negative).

Highlights

Positives:

• I beat my 10-mile time from last week by 10 minutes. At that mile marker I didn't feel any overwhelming pain, thus I made the decision to finish the race.
• I ran across the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time! Granted, there was maybe 60% visibility and it was windy/freezing, but it was so neat!!
• I finished the race without severe injuries.
• This is my favorite highlight: At the finish line there is usually an announcer who entertains the lingering crowd and essentially does a rolling commentary. When I rounded the corner and saw the finish line, I wanted to finish with everything I had. So I balled my fists, put on my game face, and switched from a light run to a full-out sprint. The next thing I heard from the announcer was: "Oh my, look what we have here. There seems to be a trojan warrior charging the finish line. This is a rare sight indeed folks, even in San Francisco. Go warrior!" At first, I thought that there really was a person dressed like a Spartan somewhere in the crowd, so I looked around. But, when I realized he was talking about me, I ran even faster and passed someone, especially when the crowd started cheering louder for me. This will go down as one of my favorite racing moments. I'm still tickled that I've been dubbed a trojan warrior.

Negatives:

• I had to wake up at 4 am. for this race, which started at 5:30 am. yuck.
• Some rude lady shoved me when I was on Golden Gate bridge (around mile 9), yelling: "Get out of the way!!" At the time, I was tiring out a bit so I consciously moved to the side to walk for a while. Seriously lady, there's no need to shove. It's not like you don't have the whole road.
• The traffic was so backed up where they blocked off the streets (miles 11-13), that the drivers thought it'd be constructive to hold down their blaring horns for 5 minutes at a time. Honestly people, I know that the race posts about the traffic delays days in advance. Please plan accordingly and don't take things out on the people who drag their butts out at 4 am to run for a cause.
• Somewhere along the way, I lost my car/house keys. They fell out of my pocket. It's a darn good thing that I let Raquel sit this race out because it was so early. Because, she and my other friends came to my rescue when I discovered that I was locked out of my car after I ran 13.1 miles. Believe me, at that point I didn't want to retrace my steps to find them.

And that concludes my post-race commentary, folks. The next thing on the horizon is the SJ Rock and Roll Half Marathon in two months. Yes, I've learned my lesson about proper training before a race. So, this time I'm going to do it right. In fact, I've suddenly inspired Raquel to want to train with me (during my short/fast runs). Most of you are aware that I prefer to run solo, so I do see the dilemna in this training technique. I'll let you know how it goes. Stay tuned for my official time results, my iPod graph from the race, and my action pics.