Nike Women's Half Marathon San Francisco-Race Day!

I can honestly say that I have NEVER, EVER slept so well the night before a race.  I guess the long travel time combined with a day of sight-seeing left me with no other choice.  And it was delightful.  Our 4:30 am wake-up didn't seem insane.  Probably because we were both fast asleep before 9 pm.

My pre-race ritual is to wake up; enjoy coffee, a banana, and a peanut butter chocolate chip Larabar; and then get myself "ready" for the run.  This process includes stuffing 3 Gus into my bra in a manner that doesn't irritate me, filling my hand-held water bottle, and getting dressed and bibbed up.

We walked out the door of our awesomely placed hotel-thank you fast running friend-and headed to the start line.  Despite lacking in the communication department, the Nike Women's Half was extremely well organized.  My fast running friend was in a faster corral than me, so we snapped a quick picture together (with her phone I think...) and parted ways.

Each corral was super well organized with its own set of porta-potties and gear check.  The only waiting I did that morning was for the race to start and then for my corral to be released!  I don't run with my phone (blogger fail, again) so I snapped a selfie and had a random new friend take a picture before I gear checked my phone.

Yes, it was dark for the start of the race.  The first corral took off right at 6:30 am and it was right about 7 am that I crossed the start line.  I had three goals in mind...I always have three.  Goal #1 was to beat my last half marathon time, goal #2 was to finish by 9:00, and goal #3 (which I told myself I was not serious about, but maybe I was) was to PR.  That goal seemed a bit far-fetched since this course was super hilly and what not...

I have zero course pictures because I run phoneless; however, the course was gorgeous, full of support and awesome runners!  The water stops and fuel stops were amazingly well run and had tons of volunteers working to make everything go smoothly.  Again, despite their lack of pre-race communication, Nike sure knows how to put together a great race.  And the race includes free photos!  

Here's a selfie I took after retrieving my stuff from gear check.

And this is my official finisher photo (or one of them at least).

Nike Women's Half Marathon San Francisco-First Night

After packet pick-up, we settled into our hotel room (which I TOTALLY forgot to snap pics of...still getting used to this whole blogging thing) and decided to head down to the Wharf/Pier area.  We hit up some public transportation again, but this time we took the cable cars!

We took the cable cars both days we were in San Fran and both times proved to be highly entertaining, and costly!  $7 for a one-way ride.  Yikes!  The drivers on our first trip were very cautious about our safety and were constantly reminding riders to lean in, especially when cars or other cable cars/buses passed us!

The view of the hill we were climbing was gorgeous and terrifying for the next day's run!

This picture was taken at the top-ish of the hill.  Please note that the climb up mirrored the drop down that you can see here!  Eek!

Once we got down to the water, the view was even more spectacular.

To the right of this picture was Alcatraz.  One day I'd love to take a tour, but you have to book weeks in advance and be prepared to shell out around $100.  Not quite budget friendly :)  But definitely an experience, from what I hear.

We took the cable car back to the hotel, although the trip took longer than we would have liked.  Apparently the drivers take their shift changes very seriously, and we straight up waited in the cable car, in park, in the middle of the road while the first crew left and the second crew arrived.  Literally it was a car full of folks with no attendants.  Got to love a union state.  Here in the Old Dominion we don't roll like that.

After dropping our stuff off at the hotel, we wandered for a hot minute before finding a pizza/Italian diner for dinner.  I definitely didn't take any pictures here and barely remember the meal.  We were both absolutely exhausted and couldn't wait to crawl in bed.  We both knew we'd sleep great the night before the race, since we'd been up for 24+ hours!  We had a 4:30 am wake up, so sleep was necessary for many reasons...

Nike Women's Half Marathon San Francisco-Arrival and packet pick-up

This past weekend was one of the most fabulous weekends that I have had in a long time.  Don't get me wrong, I have had some awesome weekends recently, but this one takes the cake!!!  I ran the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco, California.

I enjoyed this fabulous weekend with another runner friend who is also a reading specialist.  I met her through my grad school cohort and we were fast friends!  Ironically, she is actually quite a fast runner too ;)

Our journey started around midnight on Friday.  I picked my fast runner friend up and we headed up to Reagan Airport in DC.  Traffic was quite light, not surprisingly since we left at midnight and we made great time.  We rolled into economy parking (which FYI is a bit of a misnomer, as it's $17 a day!), woke up the gate person, and were on a shuttle to the airport by 3:15 am.  Thankfully both flights took off and arrived on time and we landed in Cali around 9:45 am.  I even caught a few zzz's on the plane, which is rare for me.

The real fun began as we navigated the public transportation system to get from the airport to our hotel in Union Square.  We took an airport shuttle to the Bart station and then stared at the Bart map for a solid 5 minutes before determining which stop we needed and which line would get us there.  It took another 10 minutes to purchase our tickets at the kiosk, and not because we were clueless, it was just a slow process.

We were quite proud of ourselves! :)

We met a super friendly guy on the Bart who gave us some key tips that really proved to be helpful over the course of the weekend.  We hightailed it from the Bart station to check in to our hotel.  We stayed at the Hotel Beresford and I would highly recommend it.  They staff and facility were awesome!!!

After we dropped off our bags, we headed to packet pick-up at the Westin.  It was super well organized and we were in and out in a matter of minutes.  The whole weekend was well organized, the only issues we had were related to the lack of communication from Nike.  But I will get into that more in a future post reviewing the actual race.

We left the Westin and bee-lined to the Nike store to shop for SF gear and find our names on the wall.  I found mine and was even able to pose with it!  Woot woot!

After waiting in line to check out at Nike and dropping $125 on two items (which I LOVE) we headed back to the hotel to make our game plan.  Stay tuned for our evening adventures on night #1.

Down for the count

So between trying to work two jobs  (I got a new job, but couldn't start until I had a replacement at my old one, so I was half in both positions) and getting sick, I've been totally MIA. Ugh bronchitis, ain't nobody got time for that. But I'm on the mend and am feeling better.  I got in a good run Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. I'm headed out for a good one shortly, I hope!  Yesterday I tried out my San Fran run outfit. Always try out race day apparel prior to the big day. You never know how things work out on the road. Here's my nod to Tiffany and Co and Nike....the race sponsors.

 Everything worked great, except for the socks. Those ended up with a hole in the toe. Good thing they're old. Guess I'll add that to my pre-race shopping list. What do you wear for races? Do you like something new, like me?  :)

Speed Work + Me = Love; BUT Long Runs + Me= Nothing Good :(

So as the title of this post might imply, my long runs have not been super fantastic.  Last weekend I had 10 miles scheduled and I did 7.  Hey, both numbers end in "n" so I was kind of on track.  Not.At.All.

But, all of my short runs and speed work/hill runs have been great.  On Monday nights I attend a free running group through Biffledinked Running, and this week's session felt great.  Wednesday I had 9x400s scheduled and I nailed them at the paces I wanted.

BTW, this is what I came home to after my Wednesday morning run.  It was about 5:45 am when I got home from the gym.  Guess he's not a morning pup.

Today I completed the run that I was scheduled to do on Thursday, but didn't make it b/c of time issues.  I did my normal routine of 3 bridge repeats over the Great Neck Bridge.  It was hotter than it's been all week and more humid, but my run felt GREAT!  Once again Speed Work + Me = Love!  I spotted these tally marks at the bottom of the hill and knew that my running group friend had done her own hill work here recently.

Ignore my creepy shadow.  One day I'll learn how to take normal pictures, or at least better ones.  Tomorrow I'm supposed to run a 15K race.  I couldn't find any, so I'm mapping out a route around my neighborhood.  Wish me luck!  I'm also in a weekend challenge for Fitbit, so that might motivate me to complete the long run.  Need those steps!

Challenge Preparations

So today was Day 1 of the AdvoCare 24 Day Challenge.  And it's gone GREAT! :)  Food tasted yummy and I got some great speedwork training done.

But, before the whole clean eating thing got kicked off today, I had some super dirty food yesterday. \ Dirty, ya see what I did there?!

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Man, I need to work on my picture cropping skills.  And by work on them, I mean use them.

Anyhow, while those treats might be decadent and sinful, they did NOT include any soda or fast food.  Haven't touched either of those since I did my first challenge.  Yea for small victories.

More on Day 1 tomorrow!

Running Research

So I conducted some very official running research today.  I'm thinking this is good practice for if/when I ever begin a doctoral program.  Now, based on my past career as a science fair judge, I believe I need to repeat this trial at least 3 more times to truly reflect on my data.

At this point, I'm sure your bursting with curiosity about said running research.  Whelp, I busted out some new running shoes today to see if it would jump start my long run slump.  I decided that since I've had some issues with my toes hitting the top of the shoe (yes, I have the right size...) I would attempt a strategy that I came across on Pinterest.  I figured it wouldn't hurt the situation and it's a free potential solution!

**Ignore that fact that the source appears to be drinksvelte.com?  I sweat I've seen this many other places, but this graphic was the most succinct.  Anyhow, today I tied my left shoe with this new way (top configuration)

and my right show the regular old way...

Here's the side-by-side comparison.

1. Laces Out!  Ace Ventura, anyone?!
2. I don't understand how the single foot shots are facing one way and the feet shot is facing the other.  I swear I took them all back to back.  Weird.

Anyhow, I know that you are DYING to know the results of my lace-off.  Yes, the left toes definitely seemed more comfortable and didn't seem to get pushed towards the front of the shoe as much.  BUT, while both feet had some blistering, the left foot had slightly more.  The blisters showed up in the area where they always do and there could be many factors-new shoes, recent pedicure, or the lacing pattern.  I'll let you know how trials #2 and #3 go.  I'm leaving them as they are for now.

And this is what I came home to...

Ruff life!