A year ago, Siobhan was inspired by a line in the Katy Perry song "California Gurls" that went "Fine, fresh, fierce / we've got it on lock." and had me design a shirt for our Chi Omega family. It was never used, so I suggested that we use it for shirts for the race.
We did iron ons and the four of us boasted tees with that splashed across the front, and the three Chi Ohs had "We are Chi O, We Run NWM 2011" on the back.
At 6 a.m. we all blearily rose from our nervousness-free night of sleep to prep for the 7 a.m. race start. At 6:45, we toddled down to Union Square to join the other 24,000 runners.
We look like a pretty perky bunch for that early in the morning. It was the adrenaline of being about to run 13.1 miles through the street of San Fransisco. It was to be my fourth in just over a year, Siobhan and Vanessa were running their first, and Heather's fourth as well.
Union Square was packed. I wish I had taken a picture, but I was too bleary to do so. It was all I could to to remember to take the above picture! The emcee finished up their warm up session that started at 5:45 a.m. and ended right before the start of the race, then he did his little schpiel and the racers were off!
Our first three miles went well, Heather and I split from Siobhan and Vanessa as we had planned -- we intended to meet back at the hotel -- and I experienced my first BIG race. The running speeds were surreal, because it felt like we were going faster than we were just because of all the people we were passing. That and the tall buildings mixed with the overload of people using the same Garmin satellites we were caused our watches to go in and out, confusing our pace and distance.
Regardless, we were doing well, our slow first mile countered by a peppy 2nd and 3rd. At mile three, we whipped out our first packs of shot blocks. I erroneously grabbed my extra sodium blocks. Shrugging, I ate them anyways even though I don't usually until mile 6.
That was to be my downfall. Once that extra salt hit my system, disaster struck. Dizzy, nauseous, tunnel vision. The extra salt mixed with the strain I was putting myself through to run the race had yuck pumping through my bloodstream. My body rebelled.
Our pace slowed from our peppy 9-ish minute mile to a 10 minute crawl. I was frustrated and kept apologizing to Heather, who kept trucking merrily and waved aside my pitifulness with good humor and optimism. The race was a blur from there on out as I struggled with my unhappy stomach.
I do know there were some fun things that I wish we had known about...like the sports bra exchange, where you turn in your bra for a brand new Nike one. Unfortunately, we wear our good bras to run. Whoops.
Anyhow.
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| Photo op in front of the Golden Gate Bridge |
We finished. At 2 hrs and 15 minutes (according to our watches, which we stopped every time I had to stop to try to heave), though our official time was 2:22. But we did it!
I enjoyed it, though I'm blocking out our adventure back to our plush hotel -- my first true experience with San Fransisco's muni (5 minutes from BART to the Giants Stadium doesn't count). Anyways. It was fun. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Maybe even next year.
I learned a lot.
Ciao for now,
kc
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