Eve’s Power Weekend

That’s right, I did it! I completed my first ever half marathon on Sunday feb 4 in San Francisco. Its something that I’ve been meaning to do for a while now.. and finally I did it, yipeee!!!!

Saturday Feb 3- Snowboarding in Tahoe

So, Silly me, I went snowboarding in Tahoe on Saturday (the day before my run), thinking that it would be no big deal. In all honestly, it was not a hardcore day of boarding. As I grew up boarding the Alberta Rockies, I am used to huge majestic mountains ranges and ski resorts with 3 peaks, and 4 chairs to the top. Tahoe, my friends does not offer anything even close to this. I went to the very top of the mountain and it took only 8 minutes to get down to the very bottom. It was so pathetic. On top of that, all of the snow was man made… and there was maybe a 6 inch cover… it was so sad. My brand new snowboard got totally ripped up due to the rocks. Plus, I was really hesitant to go fast, as I knew if I fell, I would get injured… not good as I had a half marathon to run the very next day. The one good thing, is that the Weather was fantastic!! We are talking spring skiing conditions in t-shirts and shorts. Sadly, I attached my lift ticket to my big down ski jacket…so I sweated my way up the lifts… but it was still nice to bask in the sun in a beautiful place. The chalet was amazing. it was actually a ski village complete with condos, restarants, and botique clothing and jewlery stores, selling ski jackets for $1000 and furry Ugg boots for $300. Obviously this was a hot spot to the rich & bored.

I will happily settle for a rugged chalet in return for the Alberta Rockies, complete with LONG runs and mounds of real snow.

Sunday Feb 4- ½ Marathon in San Francisco

I woke up at 5am, ate my peanut butter and banana on toast, did a few leg stretches to get the blood flowing and drove to Fremont to pick up Harmandeep who also ran. Note- peanut butter is something I only allow myself for sporting activities, as it is very high in fat calories, and not something I “need” for regular life. However… peanut butter is a miracle food for endurance physical activities and it really does stick to your ribs. Cliff bars and Gu have nothing on a good old fashioned BP & banana sandwich on whole-wheat.

We got to Golden Gate Park at 7:15am and drove around aimlessly looking for a place to park. It took us a good 15-20 minutes to find a spot that was like 10 blocks away from the race start. So, I counted this as a “warm up”, and we power walked to the starting line.

Holy Moly, I have never seen so many people ready to run at one time- there were 10,000 people there! I was expecting a crowd of like 1000, like the sprint tri I did in the fall. The race started at 8:06am and I was off… listening to my ipod and trying to get my legs loosened up. I guess snowboarding wasn’t the smartest thing to do the day before, as right from the start my quads were tight--- I knew it was going to be a very long run!

It took the first 3 miles to get out of the mass of people and into a comfortable running rhythm around people at my pace. For some odd reason they didn’t have a staggered start, silly organizers. Obviously this was put on by a first time company... or they just weren’t expecting the mass of people that turned up.

The run was BEAUTIFUL. We weaved through golden gate park and along highway 1, which runs right along the coast. Plus there were only minor hills… nothing like the cable car hills in the middle of SF, thank goodness!

Miles 5-9 were really easy…I zoned out listening to “welcome to the jungle”, “bullet with butterfly wings” and other motivational running tunes.

Miles 9-11 were equally easy--- my legs were numb and the scenery as beautiful… but at this point I could see the “REAL’ marathon runners finishing up the race, and I was so jealous. There was a guy running with BARE feet!!!

Miles 11-12 were hard. Real hard. My legs were sore…I could feel the muscle fibers being torn apart.

Mile 12 was TORTURE… was this race ever going to end!! Seriously,,, and the final ½ mile turned a corner and went UP HILL……… i swear that if it wasn’t for the herd of people surrounding me, I think I would have just fallen down and died!

The Finish: The end was glorious! I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes at the completion of a goal that you’ve been working for. i love all of the snack size power bars, bananas and trail mix that they hand out. Yum Yum!

Post Race: After the race we had to walk back to our car… which was about 3 miles away. If we would have shown up earlier for the race, we could have parked at the finish line and been shuttled to the start... but we didn’t. So, after running 13.1 miles, I we walked 3 SF city miles back through the golden gate park and to our car. When we finally go there… we didn’t see the car, or the street where we parked. We asked a local were 12th and Balboa was, and they kindly informed us that we had went the wrong direction through GG Park and that it was on the OTHER SIDE of the park. GG Park is HUGE, MASSIVE infact, and there was no way I had the strength to walk through it AGAIN! So… we walked to a main street and waited at a bus stop for about 20 minutes until a cab drove by and we gladly hopped in. THANK HEAVENS.

Next Challenge
I think I am going to go all the way and run a FULL MARATHON- 26.2 miles. I’m not sure when or where, but I will start researching it, and hopefully will do one by the end of 2007. I will keep you all informed of my progress. Anyone interested in joining me?

Superbowl
After the run, I went home, showered and went to Angel’s Superbowl party with Sean. It was super fun and I ate pizza, Cheetos and homemade cookies. My appetite was out of control, and I gained every ounce back that I could have possibly lost running 13.1 miles.


XOXO

Eve