The Spirit of the Marathon

4:54:04 AM. Self portrait @ hotel just before stepping out.

As soon as you came out of the hotel you could see runners everywhere. It was an instant great feeling and it also eliminated the “I hope it wasn’t yesterday and slept through it” feel we sometimes get when we are excited about something.

Since I was (luckily) staying at a hotel right in-front of the start line, I can’t comment on the public transportation, parking situation for local runners. I always have suggestions about that, but in this case… this was awesome for me not to have to worry about getting to the start line!

Ahh! seasoned runners. You can tell because you know that at the first sight of a restroom you better use it ;-)

Don’t recall water “stations” available at the start line for my other marathons. I might have missed them… but in any case, I thought this was neat. Hydration is so important and since you’ve been asleep for many hours before you get to the start line, it helps to have this available.

Bag check-in. The goodie bags were the bags that you had to use for them to hold your stuff. It was neat that they had an area to write the number already imprinted.

Thought it would be crowded but to be honest, there were more people than I thought. I had read that the SF Marathon didn’t attract much runners, but that’s clearly not the case. I think they were 23,000+ according to what I heard the day before at the Expo.

So, far so good… BUT can we improve the START sign a little? EVERYTHING was so pretty and well designed… and THIS is the START sign? :-( Do not like.

So for those of you who don’t know this… the SF Marathon starts in “waves”. According to the your estimated finish time, you start at a different time. Although some people don’t like that (I’m still undecided), the reason is that because the marathon crosses the Golden Gate Bridge back and forth, it’s impossible for everyone to start at the same time. There’s too many people and only two lanes are for running, so it would create a major runner congestion that would force almost everyone to walk it instead of running it. So I guess I’m with the ones in favor. Anyways, according to your wave, you were placed in a corral that would move toward the start line as the ones before you would start their waves.

Long lines at the portable restrooms, but gotta say they were plenty available. So the wait wasn’t too bad.

OMG, more people!

The very cool thing about this start line is that the area was huge and very well illuminated, so you could go to the side and be alone and stretch. Or just have some time for yourself. Or pee ;-)

Or tie your timing chip to your shoe laces!

Fenced in. I think this was wave 4 barely starting to get filled in. They were a total of 8 waves and by the start time they were all packed.

You never know… and it’s good to know this is there. Although, the thought that you or some of your fellow runners will be in crutches by the end of the day, is not good.

This is part of the “Spirit” of marathons. How many other times can you lay and stretch on the MIDDLE of the street and not get killed?

I’m always curious if any of the contraptions, socks, tape, etc… that some runners swear by actually works. If you have some experience of using and not using any of these things, please let us know in the comments section.

Although dogs are not allowed to run the marathon, they are allowed to come cheer their human parents. Woof!

This I didn’t read on, or have more info on, but apparently, there was also a bike race that was part of the Marathon event.

And in the matter of a minute or two, the sky turns from black to blue and daylight appears. I don’t know about the rest yet, but if this is the view on the start-line, I can only imagine what’s to come.

Wave 7 was the best one. You could just hang out anywhere and have space to yourself as our corral had an “outlet” to the sidewalk and pier areas.

This is how the front of wave 7 was looking.

Right in-front of us wave 6.

Love it! I love how her tiara has a protective elastic band that matches the color of her cap so that it won’t fall. Clearly this is not the first time she wears a tiara to run!

Another observation. This was THE social media marathon. Everyone had their iPhones, Blackberries, etc… Self-portraits, photos of others. You could see how people would take a photo and immediately tweet it or facebook it. It’s interesting how social media and phones allow everyone who you know to stay up to date to how your race is going. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I would later find out there will not be that many people cheering along the course. They could cheer from facebook. (do not like)

Focused. I just like it when people have that “focused” look on their faces. The “this is between Me AND Me” look.

So, now wave 6 ahead of us has left and before they remove the barricades, there is a tape so that we all can walk to the start line and wait there for the time of our wave to commence.

Timing chip. If you forgot yours…. there will be no way of tracking your official time or even a record that you ran the marathon. A lot of people were already wearing theirs on Saturday. Better safe than sorry!

Preparing her Nike+ app on her iPhone. Mine broke but I did use it for the Nike human race and on one marathon and was blown away by how accurate the mile reading was on that thing.

Just under the START sign. One minute to go.

This is one of my favorite photos from the entire race. You can’t see any faces but you can tell, these girls are ready! Also notice how all the people at the front line are girls. They are the most eager to get going!

That was the announcer guy (with the visor). I missed his name, so if anyone knows who he is, please let me know so I can post it.

And 3-2-1!!!! Here we go!

First part of the marathon goes next to all the Piers. This one is the one were you would board a ferry to go to Alcatraz. I would have loved to take one of those tours and take some pics of Alcatraz. Next year! ;-)

So far so good. Note to self: “Don’t go too fast, your ankle hurts, take it slow”.

Since mile 1, I decided to take 10 second “brakes” every little while to snap a few pics from the crowd behind me. I realized from the last photo essay I only did that once or twice and I wanted to do that a bit more this time.

Love this guy. Now THAT is a high-five!

This part was really beautiful. We are two miles into it. You could even run on the sand for a second if you wanted. It was so peaceful and with a great view.

This was the view!

And if you don’t like the view on the right, may I interest you in some Ghirardelli Chocolate from Ghirardelli Square on the left side? anyone?

Some people went to the right and skipped the very first hill of the course. Clever but useless, as this was absolutely NOTHING compared to the hills we were about to see.

Like this one!

Top of the hill. First hill: check!

What goes up, must come down!

Rant: I have few complaints about this Marathon, but one of them is the signs. I totally missed the sign for miles 1 and 2. They were flimsy and if the wind was blowing, you couldn’t even see the number in them

“10 sec break, shoot photo of runners behind you, now keep going”

Totally random but I love this photo. It just seems fun to be walking your dog and all of a sudden have 23,000 people run by.

Mile 4 already?! Woohoo!

Don’t know if this guy was one of the official entertainers or if he just grabbed his drum and came to play! Either way, any and all distractions work!

The nice folks from Sports Basement. I’m starting to notice this is only the second “big” group of people cheering… hmmm… that’s weird!

First sight of the Golden Gate Bridge! and of course a Kodak moment. Why not take a 15 sec break and snap pics seemed to be in everyones mind. Oh and tweet it really fast also!

This is going to be cool! We are getting closer!>

Here we go. Run the Golden Gate Bridge. If I’m not mistaken running it back and forth and the loop at the end will be a total of three miles.

Look up!

As much I love the “Grammy” and her “high 6” grandchildren… I don’t think talking on the phone with thousands of runners behind you on a single lane is such a great idea… i’m just sayin’

The people on the left are like 3 miles ahead of us! You could totally just turn around and join them and do a 23 miler ;-) but something tells me there will be a sensor on the loop at the end to make sure nobody pulls a fast one!

Just Married! What a great thing to train for a marathon as you prepare your wedding to relieve the stress and then honeymoon in the marathon city. While not for everyone… it might work. I seem to be full of tourism ideas today!

Really appresh the effort to come cheer for your loved ones in the middle of the bridge. That’s love! And a long walk back to the car!

This is the end of the bridge, looking back. I gotta say, running across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, with the fog and the wind, and all that adrenaline…. was amazing. Definitely a bucket-list moment!

So as soon as you finished going North on the bridge, there was a very appropriately placed water station, sensor-timmer (told you so), restrooms and a band playing. I had no clue the name of this band, but if someone knows them, please let me know who they are so I can post it.

And now on the way back, since we are at the end tail of the runners the two lanes turn into south ones. The people still coming north have to run on the side.

So, after that, I didn’t take pics for a while. My ankle started hurting really bad. Mix of adrenaline and pain cremes and stuff got me through the first 10 miles. Now I’m starting to feel it. To make matters worse…. as soon as we were coming off the Golden Gate Bridge, a lady a few feet ahead of me tripped and fell. She didn’t have time to put her hands in-front of her and fell face first. A bunch of people stopped to help her. And I felt that sense of community and humanity that this events have. She was hurt and some people didn’t care about stopping to help her even if it would take time from their official finish time. I saw an ambulance close by and ran towards it. As I was getting closer the paramedics came out and started going towards her, so they already new. I hope she is okay. I hope she was able to keep going! I sent you positive vibes lady and hope you got them and that you are ok! :-D

Now we are heading into Golden Gate Park.

At this point, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep going to another 13 miles. I though of just finishing as a half-marathoner and then taking one of the shuttles to the Marathon finish line and documenting that way. I stopped for a few seconds, and all I could think of was my Mom. She broke her hip last year and she refuses to walk by herself because she is afraid of falling again. I always tell her that millions of people that don’t even have the ability to walk would give anything to have her legs. I was in a lot of pain, because of my sprained ankle, but I decided to be grateful for my legs and keep going “for mom” and knew I would be able to power through with my aching ankle.

Once the half-marathon runners are divided from the full-marathon , the group thinned a lot!

This kid was awesome. Look at his face! He started yelling at me: “Why are you running with your camera”!!!??? I don’t know kid, I’m crazy like that ;-)

Ok, one of the COOLEST things of this marathon. The road assistance guys all over the 26.2 mile course were local bikers! They were all volunteers and they were everywhere! With their bikes and orange caps! They were so friendly, excited to be there and were cheering and yelling encouraging words to all of us. Oh wait, what is that? another chance to do a half? or is this for the people that are running the second half that started at the end of the first? Confused.

The run around the park was the low-point for me of this race. No race is perfect. I totally understand that it takes incredible effort on behalf of the City to organize and host this and that we are inconveniencing people that could care less about insane 26 mile runners like us, but the park loop was way too long. There was nothing to see except greenery and more greenery and I lost the “marathon” feel. It was like a run in the park. To make matters worse, not only are the people that cheer scarce on this race, in the park, they were non-existent! So anyways, seeing the peeps from dailymile was a welcome sight AND they were giving away M&M’s!

Hmmm…. I gave it the benefit of the doubt. It was a beautiful park, don’t get me wrong, but there was no marathon feel to it.

And… confusing. So these two girls in front of me took out their map, because there was no sign! You could either go left or go right. But nothing was telling you were to go. Who runs a marathon with a map!!!??? but thank god they did because we all stopped behind them and just followed them!

Gorgeous? yes…. but…. too long. Three people I talked to and two I overheard at the hotel said the same thing. A guy in the elevator said to me “Best part, the Golden Gate Bridge”, “Worst part, the park. It was relentless”. Beautiful scenery though.

This was my favorite moment of the race. That guy caught up with my pace and asks me: “Do you know if the 5:45 pacer is ahead of us”? I say: “I don’t know, I think so… we are going too slow”. He says, “well the 6:00 hr pacer is behind us for sure”. And I said to him: “Are you sure? I mean, I think he has passed us also” and he answers “No! of that I’m sure. I’ve been looking for him because there’s no way I will come above 6 hrs. All I want is to finish under the 6 hr mark so that they give me a medal”!

This photo, I just took as reminder of that moment of the race for me. See, a marathon, is a little bit like a mirror. It shows you who you are. And for the 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 or whatever amount of hours it takes you to finish, you see who you are. You see yourself and your thoughts about what is possible and about what you can endure and “mind over body”. So my ankle was hurting so bad and I was so annoyed that this park loop would never end, that I looked up and said to God “I’m just going to stop complaining and I’m going to be thankful. I’m in freakin’ San Francisco, running my 4th marathon!!! So THANK YOU God”

Mile 18! Woohoo!

Again, the biker idea: GENIUS! Not sure if this was the first time or if it’s an every year occurrence… but it was such an original and fun detail. Very clever SF!!!!

OMG! Is that the park exit? For reals? YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seems like it is! We are free! Yay!

Let me look back to make sure!

Okay, let’s power through.

Neat area. I have to look up the name of this street. It was full of neat little restaurants, shops, and houses. I know I should be a better “tour” guide for the people reading this, but my ankle was hurting so much I was starting to hallucinate.

Neat architecture all over. And colorful!

Look at that downhill!!!!!!!!!!! Amazing!

Ok, last Rant. This is around mile 23 or so. And it’s the FIRST sign I see that the habitants of San Francisco put out. The runners had all the spirit, but the habitants of the City could have cared less that a marathon was going on. The only very few people cheering as you can see in all the photos were basically relatives of the runners. And that was it. It reminded me that last year at the LA Marathon on the famous stadium-t0-sea course was the one (LA) Marathon with the least amount of citizen “cheer”. You want to know which one had the most? The first one I ever did. The one everyone complained because it went through the ugliest and poorest parts of Los Angeles. Well, those people would set tables in front of their houses buy treats, oranges, bananas, mini-pretzels, make lemonade and the entire family took this as an “activity” for the day and had their kids excited about handing water and food to the runners. I realized then last year while running on the richest part of LA that very few people cared (not saying it was the whole route, but yes on the “fanciest” ones). So, I also think that my Marathon photo-essays can help improve cities to organize their marathons. What about some city contests? what about best water station booth by locals? most original cheer troupe? loudest? How about some fliers where the route goes by to the residents in the area with neat photos and graphics and maybe a local discount motivating them to come out and cheer. Let me tell you something: The people at the front of the race, don’t need it. They can finish a marathon in 3 hours with or without cheers. But the people struggling at the end, we appreciate it, it distracts us, when you see our name on our bib and you yell to us as if you know us that we can make it, that we are awesome, that we are almost there…. we believe you.

My ankle bandage was starting to come off. The beginning of the end. :-( I can’t even run anymore, not even a few yards, so let’s walk.

This was a neat part for me. I love industrial looking stuff and architecture. The giant stadium with the empty seats looked really cool.

And I think Joe Perry is town….

Something for everyone to see along the route.

Now, I said there were very few people cheering but I didn’t say there wasn’t a great cheerer! This lady was awesome. You can see her here smile all the way back and you could hear her from a mile away. She was so happy, so cheerful, so loud and appropriately on Mile 25 she was yelling “YOU ARE ALMOST THERE, YOU ARE ALMOST THERE”!!!!!! (thanks lady)

Yep. Almost there.

This was cool, the AT&T Park. Home of the San Francisco Giants. Neat architecture. It was awesome to run next to it. And another crazy idea, how about some places like this were you could run “through”? I know I know, people would think the place would be destroyed, but if you think about it, we would just be running through. I don’t even know if it would work in stadiums or other venues… maybe… just a thought. If you have an idea about a “run-through” venue for a marathon please say so in the comments. As I said, crazy idea, hallucinating with ankle pain…so moving on.

You take my picture, I take yours!

Omg, this is it. Final stretch. Mile 25.5…..

This brought a big smile to my face because the guy from the park was right, the 6 hr marathon pacer had not run past us. He did at the very end of my race. Meaning I came in around that time. But I really hope that dude got his wish and did a 6 hr marathon.

Appropriately placed Pier 26 , right in front of the 26 mile marker. Coincidence?

See what I was telling you about my mom and her walking earlier? I have friends that say “I would run a marathon… but” The list goes something like this: I have bad knees, I can’t run, I can’t wake up early, My boobs are too big, I’ve never been good at it, I used to run but I don’t anymore, I did track back in high-school, it’s too dangerous to run on the street, the air quality is so bad, etc… etc… You know what? If you don’t want to run… DON’T… but don’t say anything. Don’t say “I would.. but”, because there are amazing people that nothing stands on their way… those are real marathoners. Whether the guy did the half or the full… it doesn’t really matter…. THAT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE MARATHON.

And…. before you know it… there it is. The finish line!

Now on the other side of it! Once again, thought I couldn’t do it, but I did. I sometimes doubt myself. I shouldn’t.

Guy waiting for his peeps to cross.

Look!: a bunny!

Should I? To be honest, I considered going in, but I’m one of those guys that I don’t go to the Doctor because I’m afraid. So I thought if I go in, what if they send me to the hospital? what if my leg is falling? what if I get a $40,000.00 bill? Let’s old-school it and submerge in ice for a few hours and take it from there. And you know what? the best part of staying at Hotel is the ice-machine in every floor!

Good to know they were there though.

But for now papa, needs a medal!

I’ll take that one.

Here are two pics of runners getting their medals placed

Which gives me yet, one more idea, I promise this will be the last…. how come non of the Marathon Photo people stand next to the medal people? I think that we all feel like Olympians when they put our medal around our necks. Why not have a photo of that?

More volunteer bikers!

This finish area was great for me. It was VERY roomie! There was sitting area, medical area, etc… All well distributed, the fences were far away so you didn’t feel constrained you could sit, keep walking, it was very spacious!

and even get a massage!

This guy knows how to color-coordinate!

And this guy is over-it! lol.

Well done. I guess that to have completed a marathon that “even marathoners fear” (according to the Wall Street Journal 7/13/2010) in a little above six hours, with a sprained ankle and carrying a DSLR camera… is not too bad.

Hey! I think this was the girl at the beginning with the “It’s between me AND me” look!

Green & Recycling ‘till the very end. BRAVO SF!

Was it worth the hurt? Yep, it totally was. Will do it over and over again.

This was a guy getting off from the elevator back at the Hotel. It was amazing to have that feeling of companionship like soldiers that went to war together. It was all over the area. In the hallways, in the elevator, on the street in front of the hotel, at the restaurant. Like minded people….. BUT… I made a point of snapping this elevator photo because you know how on every elevator ride we take we tend to ignore the people in it? We look up to see the floor display or we keep our headphones on, or we check our phone? This time on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, I talked with people on every elevator ride I took. Either they talked to me, or I felt comfortable enough to talk to them and ask them something. Are you here for the marathon? How was your marathon? what did you like best? where are you from? etc…. You were not scared of people not answering or being rude and you felt great when people talked to you. It was just a great feeling of a community of runners that love, love, love to run.

And this is me. Now coming back to my room. 26.2 miles stronger.

In the end, I have to say that the San Francisco Marathon is a challenge. The Wall Street Journal is right. The amount of hills is basically ridiculous. You can’t even count them. The sights are gorgeous, maybe even draining in a way because you have all your senses on to take every little bit in. Running through the Golden Gate Bridge is indescribable. The wind first resists you and then on the way back it pushes you forward as if apologizing for the initial resistance. Ankle injury or no, the SF Marathon is a challenge that I want to conquer again. It pushes me to train harder and run hills until they don’t even faze me. I will become one with hills and be back stronger next year. At first when I read that WSJ article I felt it might be intimidating to a lot of folks and turn them off from the race. But now I see it as the opposite. Like something that people will challenge themselves with. Like you want an easy marathon? well, don’t run a marathon then! Lightly jog or do a 5k… but you want to call yourself a Marathon runner? Then run the San Francisco Marathon.