Golden Gate Half Marathon

When I reached the finish line at the Bay Bridge Half Marathon earlier this year, I was convinced that I was done. I partook in a race. It was of a brag-worthy distance and with an iconic back drop. I did better than I could have hoped for. What would be the point in ever signing up for another race?

Then Richard told me about the upcoming half marathon over the Golden Gate Bridge…

Sigh…

If there’s one thing more iconic than the Bay Bridge in the Bay Area… this had to be it.

So yeah, like a gamer obsessing over the next trophy, I signed up and dragged Ken with me too.

The Training

At this point, I knew that I could continue doing whatever I had been doing and manage a decent performance. Though, after gunning for 30+ miles week after week in the spring, I got really tired of those neighborhoods within a 4-5 mile radius from home. Spending even more time on those same street blocks was not a pleasant thought.

Another consideration was that I got rather tired toward the end of the last race. It’d be nice to have more stamina next time around. Say, what if my body was conditioned to run 13+ miles all the time?

So I ran fewer days per week but made the long ones far longer. Channeling my inner Forrest Gump, I’d pick a new direction each Friday morning and go 6-8 miles out before turning back. My ankles hurt through each Saturday, though less and less so over time.

Here are my 16 runs of 13-18 miles, reaching 12 municipalities on the SF Peninsula.

These long runs turned out to be a big project that I might remember more fondly of than the race itself. I got to know my surrounding areas so well now, having reached all the places I’d regularly drive to, as well as those that I had no idea existed. It got me excited to study the map every Thursday night and memorize new roads and turns for the next morning. I looked for interesting landmarks, hidden passes, and city boundaries. It became a game.

I collected mental trophies for places that I ran past: a chateau, a cement factory, a homeless shelter, a college campus, the county jail, 2 shopping malls, 2 cemeteries; all 10 restaurants from our spicy beef tendon challenge; dozens of places of worship including a gurdwara, a mosque, an LDS church, a wat, and a mandir.

And those miles just continued piling on:

Runner’s Nemesis

All serious runners and cyclists seem to have strong opinions of their surrounding environment. I joined their ranks in developing my own pet peeves, and here are three things that I consider to be a runner’s nemesis:

• Wealthy neighborhoods – Larger houses and deeper yards correlate with crappier pedestrian infrastructure. Even though the lords in Hillsborough mansions have enough tree-trimming budget to cover the roads with Swarovski crystals, they opt for either a complete absence of sidewalks or minimal sandy pavement intended for overflow parking. In case that’s not enough to show their disdain for anyone having to move their bodies without a vehicle, some homes even have open ditches moats between their fences and the road to maximize the odds of these peasants being hit by a car
• Dogs on loose leashes – Small and medium dogs tend to lack basic etiquette training and can be extremely jumpy when someone runs by. That excited reaction is often a sign of friendly playfulness. Other times it’s a full-on attack. For the most part, it’s impossible to tell within the split-second encounter whether my neighbor’s best friend is charging over to lick or bite me. With the dog, its walker, and the freakishly long leash blocking up to 120% of the sidewalk width, I do my best to go around them – usually all the way around parked cars and fully into the street – but there certainly have been some close calls. Thankfully I have yet to get bitten in the ankle by a Pomeranian or trip over a Chihuahua or get struck by a car when dodging a ballistic Maltese
• Cars turning right on red or at a two-way stop sign – Imagine being in the driver’s seat. Where are you looking? To the right, where your 5,000-pound vehicle is accelerating toward? Or to the left, where faster traffic may be coming from? As the pedestrian having my right of way, I was nearly struck several times because the driver did not look where he was going. The car approached the intersection, stopped, and sped up again while the driver faced the opposite direction the entire time. I’d be angrier at them if I never caught myself doing the same. Seriously, what kind of traffic engineer decided that turning right on red was ever a good idea?

An unintended side effect of running was me becoming a more cautious driver this year. In nearly all of the places that I commonly drive to, I have run through recently. Be it freeway entrances, winding mountain roads, downtown alleys, or major stroad intersections, now I know somebody could be in my blind spot so I take the time to pay extra attention. I feel ashamed that it took me so long to be more respectful of pedestrians.

The Event

This annual half marathon goes through quite a few San Francisco’s tourist attractions. It starts by Aquatic Park, runs in front of Fort Mason, through Crissy Field, onto the Golden Gate Bridge after some weird twists and turns, then backtracks from Marin, before finishing at Ghirardelli Square.

With this event having some history, I was able to look up the performance of past finishers. Every year 3,000-4,000 finished, which is massive compared to Bay Bridge Half’s 1k runners. Every year there were some crazy fast people running 5-6 minute miles. And according to this data, if I can manage 7.5-8 minutes per mile, I should finish within the top 5-10 percentile of runners.

“Just” 13 Miles Today

The race was scheduled to begin at 6:50am on Sunday, November 5th, 2023.

I should feel relaxed. This would have been the shortest weekly long run in 12 consecutive weeks. I got this. Breakfast or no breakfast; music or no music; holes or no holes in my sock… I knew that I could head out the door, hit the road, and take care of that half marathon without needing a break.

But I felt a mild level of stress building during the couple days leading up to the race. I cared. Having done this once before gave me something to aim for. I wished to meet or beat that record; I was consumed by that irrational Type A desire. I stared at historic scores as if past performance by other people could tell me how I was gonna do. I thought over and over about which shoes to wear, the pros and cons of bringing earphones, and how much to eat in the morning. Would any of that matter? I had no idea.

Another logistic strategy I had to contemplate was the number of racers. A volunteer at the packet pick-up told me that there were 5,000 participants in the half marathon this year. Even if he got that wrong and only 3-4,000 show up like in prior years, that’s still 3-4x more than the number I ran with on the Bay Bridge. With much of this course being narrower than the industrial truck routes of Oakland, I suppose it would require substantial energy to pass people during the race. As such, starting out toward the back like last time probably wouldn’t be a good idea. If I want to finish within an hour 40, I’d better stick with the other people who plan on maintaining that pace. I don’t love setting high expectations at the beginning of anything, but it may be the right thing to do here.

It’s Go Time

Getting up at 5am for a 6:50am race appeared daunting at first. Then I learned that daylight saving ended overnight, so the time was equivalent to 6am and 7:50am PDT. It happened to match when we’d normally get up and when I’d exercise. Adding in early bed time the night before and some adrenaline rush, I actually woke up a dozen times before the alarm went off.

Getting to the event was a bit chaotic. Not only ~5,000 half marathon participants but also ~2,000 5K runners were flooding into the Girardelli Square area at the same time. We were lucky to find street parking without much effort. However, when I tried to go before go time, there were Disneyland-sized lines at the port-a-potty. Minutes elapsed and I realized that it wouldn’t be my turn until after the race began. Then I made the tough decision and headed to the start line.

The event organizer gave each participant a reddish long sleeve shirt. The weather was far from cold enough to run a race in that. At Ken’s suggestion, we both wore our Bay Bridge Half shirts instead. We looked like a team! Someone even approached us to ask about it.

We reached the holding pen just two minutes before start time. The size of the crowd was impressive. I lined myself up with the 8-minute-mile group and Ken headed further back the line.

The first few miles of the race went as planned – almost. I dashed out of the gate with the determination to get a good score. The massive crowd filled up the stingy 1-lane allowance on Bay Street and Marina Blvd, and at times I was entirely boxed in from all sides. This was when I was really glad to have started where I did, and avoided being stuck behind people running a much slower pace. Nevertheless, I began passing people from the sidelines, expending quite a bit of energy in the process.

The main unanticipated variable was running with a full bladder. It was, um, uncomfortable. I was hoping for that fight-or-flight psyche to kick in and suppress the urge, but that didn’t happen. On the other hand, the discomfort also didn’t seem to impact performance, as I averaged 7 minutes per mile for the first 3+ miles. Maybe holding it for the full race would give me an extra incentive to reach the finish line faster? Eh. I gave up when reaching the second pit stop around mile 4 and used the port-a-potty there. That set me back a minute, or maybe a bit more, but I decided that it was a worthwhile price to pay.

The middle third of the race ramped up in difficulty. Both going up to the bridge in SF and down from it on the other side involved quite a bit of slopes and hairpin turns. I didn’t mind the incline too much but all those u-turns were not fun at all. Even on the Golden Gate Bridge itself, all those 90-degree turns on the pedestrian path (around the towers and lamp posts) acted as serious momentum dampers. While the gray void above and container ships below were both impressive, I found the Golden Gate Bridge part of the Golden Gate Half Marathon rather unpleasant.

The disadvantages of starting the race out front began to show around the halfway point. I had pushed myself to pass people in my direct peer group, and I could no longer sustain that overdrive any longer. Not only were my visual targets moving further into the distance, some of those who I had overtaken miles ago started to catch up. The scariest was when I saw the 1:40 pacers (who I had passed with ease around mile 1) directly behind me, at one point within six feet. I felt like being in a classic 2D side-scrolling video game where a monster or lava was chasing me at a constant speed; if I didn’t outrun it I’d die.

After coming down the bridge, we made the last u-turn at Fort Point. The ocean waves were loud despite me having music blasting into my ears. The path was wet because the waves occasionally crashed onto the land. Sea lions barked cheerfully from the water while spectators cheered us on.

I started to lose steam during the last 3 miles. The sandy part of Crissy Field accelerated my fatigue, and I could feel my pace dwindle even after returning to asphalt. As a dozen or so racers overtook my position, I was mentally ready to give up. The large crowds cheering along the final mile annoyed me. I was in pain. Like, the heart was about to explode and the blood sugar was dropping to depletion. I hadn’t felt this tired since the couple times I (mistakenly) attempted to run 19 miles.

And… thank goodness, the end.

Per the official tracker, I completed my run in 1 hour 36 minutes and 22 seconds. I was mildly hoping to beat my time from the last race, but came in 3 minutes and 20 seconds slower. Given that I needed a bio break this time and the course was more demanding, though, I suppose the result was not too shabby.

Adjusting against peer group performance, though, perhaps I did better this time. I finished within the top 4% of racers today at Golden Gate Bridge, compared to the top 5% at Bay Bridge. Coming in 169th place meant that I was faster than over 4,300 runners who showed up today!

Friends & Family

I felt very lucky that Ken agreed to join me again. Even though we never planned to run side-by-side, it was just nice to have a friend to do this with. We’d occasionally exchange texts on our training progress, and that made the otherwise lonely endeavor feel like a bonding opportunity.

And I’m extremely grateful that my family (and Ken’s) came to support. Waiting around all morning for a race to run its course has gotta be quite boring, but it meant a lot to see that they cared about something that mattered a lot to me. Although the running got rather painful, it was all worth it to see their smiling faces at the finish line.