8 Merry Marathons... Day 6..

San Francisco Marathon, July 25, 2010

I can't find a quote to quite put into words what I took away from this marathon. However, the shirt I picked up at the expo said, "Worth the Hurt" across the front, and I believe that is fairly fitting.

The San Francisco Marathon has probably been my favorite to date. Don't get me wrong, there have been a lot of fun times with the others, but SF was special. This is how it happened to be that I ran SF in 2010:

I'm sitting on the couch around Christmas of 2009, deliberating over what race to try to train for, especially in light of my wedding, quickly approaching. I thought--Bayshore, I'll go back-- it's not too far away, it's at a great time of the year, it's fun... sure let's do that. So I ask Matt about it. On board with this idea? It's about a month and a half before the wedding... the downside being I might be on the DL for running leading up to the wedding (not good).

So usually Matt is in agreement with these things... but he said no! I was taken aback, but not nearly as taken aback as to what followed... he wanted to run a marathon together on our honeymoon! San Fran was the only real option in the states the following weekend. NUTS. Here is a man who would get on me for asking him to run 4 miles together. HE wanted to run a marathon... with me! Now that's something!

This is the first reason that I loved San Fran. I ran it with my husband, the "non" runner.
We trained together a lot. Many a 8-10 milers. Most all of our long runs. He could kick my butt. That was humbling to say the least, and even more frustrating that he was "not a runner." As most runners know, the road is where relationships are built, strengthened, and solidified. I feel like marathon training was one of the best things we could have done together leading up to our wedding. It gave us hours to talk about things, or not talk about things that were on our minds. It gave us time to find out what annoyed us about each other and what we loved.

Barely a week after tying the knot, we were out to Cali---enjoying Napa before heading to San Fran for the marathon. I loved that there was no pressure. No time goal per se. The deal was that we were going to run together. The whole time. Start to finish. That's exactly what we did.



On the balcony pre-race. Yes, it was that dark!

 The course is just awesome. Being my first time in San Fran, I would say it's the best way to see the city. You start on the Embarcadero... head past Fisherman's Wharf, past Chrissy Fields and up to the Golden Gate Bridge. You run across the bridge...and back over. At that point you're around 7-8 miles. You come off the bridge and run through the park for miles. I had to pee at 13 miles. The hills are everywhere. No, not quite the hills that you see in pictures with the street cars struggling up... but some weren't so far off. You run down Haight Ashbury... you see the drag queens. Miles 21-23 are rough. There's hardly anyone around and hardly anything to see and of course, you are in extreme pain at this point.

You round the home of the Giants... The long home stretch calls you... It was amazing. Draining. Exhausting.

We finished in 3:34. Together. Then ate all the goodies our stomachs could handle until we felt sick and meandered back to the hotel to attempt at a nap...  Worth the hurt.