Nike Women’s 1/2 Marathon Recap 2014

I ran my 3rd Nike Women’s 1/2 marathon last Sunday. This was going to be a fun race because it would be a training run.

I arrived Saturday afternoon and met up with Jessica at SFO. Her awesome bro came and picked us up and dropped us off at the expo!

The expotique is different from other expos. It is geared toward women. There is lots of cool stuff but I have no patience to stand in line to get my bib. Let alone stand in line for every single booth once I get into the tent. I did stand in line to get another Nuun water bottle. (I definitely don’t need another one of those but as I told Dan: it is a different design than last year.) We also stood in line at the Whole Foods booth for a cute pic and a mini cupcake.

The rest of the afternoon was football, pizza, and bed to early. I had a big day in the early morning!

This is how it went down:
4:00: wake up
4:20: walk to Kara’s apt
4:30: leave for 5 mile “warm-up” run with Kara (We needed to do 18 miles for our last long run for NYC training.)
5:30: pick up Audrey and Jessica
6:30: Race starts!

Again I just wanted to start slow and finish strong. This was a “training” race. I wasn’t concerned with trying to cut the tangents. I just wanted to make sure my nutrition was on. I wanted to try to speed up the last couple of miles. No real time goal. I would be happy with somewhere around 10:30 miles.

Miles 0-3: We started running. It was crowded and the first couple of miles seemed to be uphill. We went through not a great area of SF. Kind of boring. There is a significant hill starting about 2.5 miles. Not bad but straight up!

3-7ish: Through Golden Gate Park. Pretty flat. A couple of aid stations. Luna Bar was out giving Luna Bars and Clif Shot Bloks. Feeling good. We sped up a bit as we were not going uphill!

7ish-10ish: We ran through Richmond area and the Presidio. Rolling hills. It was still cool but foggy. There was no sign of the GG Bridge. 😦

A little after the 10 mile mark we knew it was the calm before the storm. A big steep hill was coming. We ran/walked up it. There was lots of spectators and cheering. It was a nice downhill on the backside.

11.5-13.1: Flat to the finish. The finish was at marina green. I had a slight weird cramp on the downhill so Kara kept going and I walked for a few seconds. I said I would catch up but didn’t really think I would be able to. I kept her in my sight and I sped up and caught her. I was excited that I had more to give. We were running like 9:15s that last stretch which felt good but hard. I felt really great. My only really complaint was: The last 1/2 mile was on the waterfront path. It was narrow and it was it was a bit difficult getting through all the runners. Especially because I was trying to speed up and there was runners and walkers everywhere. There was nowhere to run.

All SMILES!!

Even though we only ran 18 miles I felt like we really “executed” the start slow and finish fast/strong. Big negative split! I would have liked to have had a bit faster time but I had a fun time. The weather was great too!

We got through the finish chute and picked up our necklaces. They are super cute. Our last super long run was done and I felt relatively good!

After getting cleaned up I met up with Taylor and Jamie. We had a great brunch at Squat and Gobble.

I had a fun 29 hours in San Francisco! Never enough time and I didn’t even get to go to Bi-Rite!!!