Bay To Breakers 2014
The city where I live is pretty small. Tiny, really: about seven by seven miles or so. Large parts of it are pretty suburban, so the actual city part is even smaller.
Today I ran the quintessential SF race: Bay to Breakers. As the name suggests, it starts at the San Francisco Bay, and crosses the town all the way to Ocean Beach -- Breakers. The course is about 7.5 mi long (12K), and race has been on continuously since 1912. The entire city dresses up in outrageous costumes, gets piss-drunk and has block parties.
I ran-ran it, except for 1 city block (I'll explain).
The course is not very hard: you start downtown, then after about 2 miles there's a pretty steep hill a few blocks long, then it's downhill, flatish-uphill for a while, and flattish-downhill through Golden Gate park, and then flat.
The Hayes hill took me a bit by surprise. I thought we were going to run on Fell (it's a street one south of Hayes), and there the hill is a bit steeper, but the highest point is on Steiner. On Hayes, the highest point is on one street over -- on Pierce, at the center of Alamo Square park, and I didn't know nor expect it. I am amazed over and over by proof of how much longer distance running is all about psychology -- and here it is -- again -- laid out clearly for me to see -- in my mind I was prepared to run up to Steiner and then run downhill. I ran up to Steiner, and there was another block to run. And I couldn't. I walked. I walked for a block or so, and only then resumed running. The next time I was aware of distance and space was when I ran through the 5 mi mark in the park (and then I tried to grab a drink without stopping, and kind of did).
I made a pretty mediocre time, I did run pretty slowly, but I did run.
my face is all scrunched up; but oh well.
some more notes --
A few weeks before the race, I had no idea what to do -- after overcoming various pains in my legs, my feet would start going numb after about 1.5 mi. I read somewhere that this is normally due to shoes being too small, as feet swell during running. I bought another pair of trainers, a size larger, but these weren't very comfortable (they were more rigid than what I liked and they gave me blisters), and my feet would still go numb. Then last week in Boston, I complained to a running friend that this is happening and she told me to cut my shoes! I did. Turns out the shoes I use for running (NB minimus) have a very narrow toe box, and cutting the ribbon that holds the box intact solved my problem. In addition, I now run in very loosely laced shoes.
During the race my feet did start to go tingly-numb at the top of that hill, but it went away after my brief walking interlude.
*
I did a practice run (4 mi or so) in Boston last weekend, and it was horrid. The air was awfully humid -- I returned with my fingers twice their normal size. I am not sure how you guys run in this weather, it was really really tough. In SF we're spoiled rotten with our fogs and dry air and mild temps. Today the weather was perfect for running.
Today I ran the quintessential SF race: Bay to Breakers. As the name suggests, it starts at the San Francisco Bay, and crosses the town all the way to Ocean Beach -- Breakers. The course is about 7.5 mi long (12K), and race has been on continuously since 1912. The entire city dresses up in outrageous costumes, gets piss-drunk and has block parties.
I ran-ran it, except for 1 city block (I'll explain).
The course is not very hard: you start downtown, then after about 2 miles there's a pretty steep hill a few blocks long, then it's downhill, flatish-uphill for a while, and flattish-downhill through Golden Gate park, and then flat.
The Hayes hill took me a bit by surprise. I thought we were going to run on Fell (it's a street one south of Hayes), and there the hill is a bit steeper, but the highest point is on Steiner. On Hayes, the highest point is on one street over -- on Pierce, at the center of Alamo Square park, and I didn't know nor expect it. I am amazed over and over by proof of how much longer distance running is all about psychology -- and here it is -- again -- laid out clearly for me to see -- in my mind I was prepared to run up to Steiner and then run downhill. I ran up to Steiner, and there was another block to run. And I couldn't. I walked. I walked for a block or so, and only then resumed running. The next time I was aware of distance and space was when I ran through the 5 mi mark in the park (and then I tried to grab a drink without stopping, and kind of did).
I made a pretty mediocre time, I did run pretty slowly, but I did run.
my face is all scrunched up; but oh well.
some more notes --
A few weeks before the race, I had no idea what to do -- after overcoming various pains in my legs, my feet would start going numb after about 1.5 mi. I read somewhere that this is normally due to shoes being too small, as feet swell during running. I bought another pair of trainers, a size larger, but these weren't very comfortable (they were more rigid than what I liked and they gave me blisters), and my feet would still go numb. Then last week in Boston, I complained to a running friend that this is happening and she told me to cut my shoes! I did. Turns out the shoes I use for running (NB minimus) have a very narrow toe box, and cutting the ribbon that holds the box intact solved my problem. In addition, I now run in very loosely laced shoes.
During the race my feet did start to go tingly-numb at the top of that hill, but it went away after my brief walking interlude.
*
I did a practice run (4 mi or so) in Boston last weekend, and it was horrid. The air was awfully humid -- I returned with my fingers twice their normal size. I am not sure how you guys run in this weather, it was really really tough. In SF we're spoiled rotten with our fogs and dry air and mild temps. Today the weather was perfect for running.