Bob Mann: 2017 San Francisco Marathon

Sun Jul 23, 2017

On Sun Jul 23 2017, I ran the San Francisco Marathon. California would become my 39th state in my 50 state quest. As with many of my Summer marathons, this one became part of a family vacation. We spent a week in California, part of the time in San Francisco and part of the time in Yosemite National Park. We flew into the Bay Area on Friday. The race started at 5:30am on Sunday, but I kept myself on East Coast time as best I could so that the start time didn't seem so bad.

Actually, this is a rather large race, and I was in Wave #6, so my start time was scheduled for 6:12am. That's not so bad. Since this was the middle of the Summer, I was happy for a nice early start time so that I could get most of the race out of the way before the sun rose too high or the temps got too warm. The temps certainly weren't very high in the morning. It was nice and chilly at the start of the race.

My wave started just about on time from in front of the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero. The sun was just beginning to come up across the bay. We ran the first couple miles along the Embarcadero, passing Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf.

Since this is San Francisco, there were many hills. The first of these hills came less than two and a half miles in. As always, my training leading up to the race wasn't very good. I knew I would struggle, so I made it a point to conserve as much energy as possible by walking up hills. Or most of them, at least. If I walked up all the hills, then I'd hardly have any time left for running. I walked up most of the large hill in the third mile. So my splits for the first few miles were quite terrible. Mile 1 was 10:03 because of the dense crowd. I sped up to 9:34 in the second mile, but fell back to 10:37 in the third mile because of the hill. Little did I know that the 9:34 in Mile 2 would be my fastest mile of the day.

I managed to get back under 10 minutes for Miles 4 and 5, but then slowed down again as we climbed up to the Golden Gate Bridge. Mile 6 had the single largest and longest incline of the day, which resulted in a turtle-like 11:07 pace for me. With this slow start and the assumption that I would still hit the wall eventually anyway, I was afraid that I would shatter the Personal Worst I set in Hawaii last Summer. But so what? I just wanted to finish.

I had been looking forward to the run over the Golden Gate Bridge, of course. What's not to like about running on one of the most famous landmarks in the country? I was imagining that I would take a ton of pictures showcasing the awesome view. But it was not to be. As we ran up the hill to the bridge deck, we ran right into a cloud. The entire bridge was shrouded in a very dense fog. I'd say that the visibility couldn't have been more than 50 or 100 feet. Oh well, so much for scenic shots of the ocean or the bay. Well, I suppose the shots of the bridge supports encased in the fog are pretty cool.

We crossed the bridge into Marin County, where the fog was gone and the sun was shining brightly. We turned around and headed back to the bridge and the fog. We were back in San Francisco by about Mile 9.5, and I was still moving slower than usual at this point in a marathon. But I felt fine. And of course the fog kept the sun off me, which I always appreciate.

The 11th mile included a significant downhill, which allowed me to move at a 9:36 pace, my second-fastest mile of the day. Around Mile 12.5 we entered Golden Gate Park, still under very cloudy skies. I finished the halfway point at about 2:15, which might be the slowest time I've ever recorded for the first half of a marathon. A new Personal Worst was looking likely.

We wove through the park going up and down hills. The 17th mile had a rather large hill that led to a large amount of walking, which led to a very slow pace of 12:00 flat. A pace this slow this early is the race seemed like a bad sign for my overall time. We finally exited the park around Mile 19.

After exiting the park onto Haight St, we were immediately bathed in bright sunlight. Where there had been thick clouds over the park, there wasn't a cloud to be seen over the streets. It was like it was a completely different day. I found the change very strange. And now I was worried that the sun would wear me down, like it often does late in races. Thankfully it still wasn't very warm.

After Mile 20, there were a lot more downhills than uphills until we made it to the bay, where it was a pretty flat shot over the last two and a half miles. Without so many uphills, I found myself walking less than I expected. I was still slow, but I surprised myself by having no miles slower than the 12:00 of Mile 17. This may be a far cry from the days when I could run an entire marathon without walking, but nonetheless I am pleased that I managed to run as much as I did over the last few miles. Perhaps walking so early in the and conserving energy really did pay off.

I ran the last couple miles along the bay and past AT&T Park back to the finish line at the Ferry Building. According to my Garmin, I finished in 4:39:19, which was well ahead of the 4:45 I ran in Hawaii. I am quite happy with that outcome.

Later that day when I checked my results, the race website listed my time as 5:22, which would have been accurate if I had started at the beginning of the race at 5:30am. I waited a couple days to see if they would update it, but they did not. I am afraid that there was a problem with my timing chip, since some (but not all) of my splits were missing as well. I wrote in and explained what wave I was in and what the time on my watch said, hoping that they would be able to double-check and get some more accurate results for me. The next time I checked, they had changed my official time to what I had said was on my watch: 4:39:19. Well, okay. I didn't expect them to just take me at my word. I figured they'd have to find me on start line and finish line camera footage to make some sort of accurate determination. But maybe they realized that I clearly didn't start at 5:30am and they were too lazy to take any effort to figure out my real time. I would guess that my "real" time would be a few seconds faster or slower than my watch showed because it's unlikely that I clicked it on and off exactly as I hit the mats. But I guess it's good enough. It goes in the books as 4:39:19, and that's good enough for me.

Overall I really enjoyed the course. Sure, the hills were tough. But someone who doesn't want to run on hills probably shouldn't run in San Francisco. It would have been nice if it weren't so foggy, but so be it, that's San Francisco weather. The course was quite scenic for the vast majority of it, except for a little bit of industrial ugliness around Mile 23 and 24. But for the most part, it was one of the more scenic big-city marathons that I've run. There are a zillion marathons to chose from in California, and I am pleased with my selection.

The rest of our week in California was nice, albeit very expensive. It's amazing how much a simple lunch costs out there. But we all had a good time. I haven't chosen my next marathon yet, but I will need to do that soon.

And now the photos. Click any image to enlarge.