You may remember that Trouble and I signed up for a series of three half marathons for an uber-mega-medal with lots of glitter on it. The first of these 3 races was the Golden Gate Half in San Francisco. Based on the 2 awkward guys with adult acne at the picnic table where we signed up, we thought that this would be one of those little podunkville races with us and like 200 other people. Then, this week Trouble and looked at the website for the first time. “Whaaaa? Race packet pick-up is at the expo the day before.” I hate it when I have to go to an expo the day before anything shorter than a marathon. “Where is Fort Mason?” Trouble asked. Arggghhh! Fort Mason is about 47 stoplights from the nearest freeway. And it’s San Francisco, so you KNOW there’s no parking nearby. Trouble decided to pay $40 (in other words, 60% of the registration cost of the race) to be able to pick up her packet on race day. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
The expo was nothing to speak of; you’ve been to one small race expo, you’ve seen them all. But in the event space next door, there was a hipster expo which was way more interesting. We walked around and looked at ironic t-shirts with octopodes on them, ironic tea towels that said “A doughnut is just a gay bagel,” and coffee microroasters auctioning off a 1 gallon Ohio fermentation crock. Whatever that is.
Running in San Francisco means start times early enough that the road closures don’t cause traffic for people trying to get to brunch. That meant that Trouble was at my house by 5am. Do you know how early 5am on a Sunday is? So early that the first Starbucks we went to wasn’t even open yet! I don’t mind waking up that early by myself, but with someone else, that hour just seemed uncivilized. We got to San Francisco right on time, but because it was San Francisco there was a road closure on the most direct route, so we had to take a giant detour, to get to a parking garage that wasn’t all that convenient (but was open), and walk just far enough that there was no way we would be able to get back to the car before the start if we needed to. On the way, we passed a police station at 6am on the nose and saw a meter maid pulling out in her little golf cart. Bitch! Where are you going?! I thought. Only San Francisco would be shitty enough to have meter maids out on the street at 6am on a Sunday. 
Then we had to face the age-old question: which to do first? Pick up Trouble’s race number, or get in the porta-potty line? There never seems to be time enough for both, even if you do wake up before Starbucks opens. We elected to go for the porta-potties. If I were ever un-lazy enough to put on a race, I would have more than one bank of porta-potties. And I would have Purell in my porta-potties. Each line curled back on itself 2 or 3 times, until the whole area just looked like an unruly mass of people, and as always every person in my line was taking a long, leisurely poo.
Now we had to find Trouble’s packet pick up. And gear check. We didn’t have time for both, so Trouble went and ran up the hill and half a mile away to pick up her packet, while I got in the 200m line for gear check. That’s right: there were about 5000 runners, and two high school students grabbing gear bags. Soon enough, people started coming up the line telling us that all we had to do was pin our numbers to our bags and dump them at the truck. So I took our reusable shopping bag with Trouble’s wallet in it, tied the handles in a knot, tied my number on with one of those arm bands that they give you at an 18-and-up club, and hoped for the best. With less than 2 minutes to go, we made it to the start and started elbowing our way forward in the crowd. We almost made it to the 2:30 pacer before we could go no further.
The beginning
Luckily, after a brief 2-block incline, we started to drop down toward the Marina, which is flat as it comes. The trouble was, that Trouble and I were stuck 2/3 of the way back in the pack, and once we were on the Marina, they squeezed the whole race onto the sidewalk. Trouble and I spent the first few miles ducking and diving through tutus and waddling meatballs before we could even find our stride.
San Francisco is known for the hills, but you could run 5.5 miles that looks like this:
If I were arranging a race, I would choose a course that incorporated a couple of humane hills, but let runners get into a groove and test themselves. I wouldn't have them keep doubling up to approach every hill that my permits covered from every direction, but that's just me...
To the bridge
Because we were in San Francisco, they just had to run us up over the bridge, which is fun and exciting, but the Golden Gate bridge is at the top of a hill. The most direct way up to the bridge looks like this little 1K climb:
But we ran right past the most obvious route up to the bridge and ran up the back way. Which was fine. From sea level, I looked up the hill and saw people running away from the bridge. “Who are those people?” I said to Trouble. The bridge is 1.7 mi long in each direction, so there’s no way they had already gone and come back. Once we got to the top, I found out we were those people. We’d just run up 200 feet, only to run back down to the beach, and then run back up the same hill the longest way to the bridge. 
As we made the final approach to the bridge, Trouble fell behind me as I slipped through two tall guys’ elbows as they closed in from each side. I kept waiting for her to catch up so that I could say, “Was that woman wearing two scrunchies?!” but I never saw here again.
I’ve ridden and run over the bridge countless times, but every time I’ve ever run across in a race, they had always shut down 2 lanes for us to run across. As we came up to the bridge, we headed toward the road… and then they turned us onto the pedestrian walkway. You know, the one that people jump off of. The one that’s only wide enough for three people abreast, except when there is an emergency call box, maintenance equipment or bridge tower to run around. Then it’s narrower. 6 miles into the race, I was still ducking and dodging around people trying to find the right pace. Every time I started to find a rhythm, I got stuck behind some asshole taking a selfie. One guy I swear was face timing.
Marin
The most direct way to turn around on the bridge and run back the other way is to run around the parking lot, go through the underpass, and run up a slight incline to the pedestrian walkway on the other side. The elevation profile looks like this.
Instead, they directed us off the edge of the hill onto an unpaved path that dropped us down toward the water and under the bridge. Trail running! The elevation profile of this route looks like this:
The Bridge… again
Then we ran back over the bridge. There were more selfies. More bottlenecks, but it was finally taking me some time to catch people, and they were staying with me longer and longer.
The humidity that had been in the air at the start had congealed into fog as we had come up to the bridge almost an hour ago. And now that fog had condensed further into a misty, dreary rain.
The mist
I already have a tendency to slam my feet into the ground and figure out the balance part later, so as the misty rain slicked up the sidewalk all I could think about was what would happen if my feet slipped out from under me. Perhaps I would fall forward and break my teeth on the concrete. Maybe I would slip like on a banana peel and crack my tailbone. Perhaps there would be some spectacular protracted stumbling and windmilling of arms and I would take out other runners like a grabby bowling ball. And if I ate shit, would I get up and keep running or take it as an excuse to walk it in while I nursed my hurt feelings, giving dirty looks to anyone who cheered me on.
As I thought all this through, I heard a scuffle of shoes, then a thump and clatter as a man right over my shoulder tripped over the concrete foot of a temporary barrier as the course again funneled down to a narrower passage. Putz, I thought. You almost took me out like a bowling pin.
 |
| I feel awful, I feel awful, I feel awful, I feel awful... When I think about you I touch myself... |
We had reached the point in the race where it was starting to get a little old. In fact, it had started to get old at the exact moment when I had finally felt like I could run my own pace. My focus was narrowing and thoughts getting less and less complex. I found myself singing “I Touch Myself” over and over in my head. God knows where it came from, but for the rest of the race my brain sang to me over and over, “I don’t want anybody else. When I think about you I touch myself.” I would try to stop, think about something else, sing another song, but after a few seconds my brain would slip and the pitter patter of my feet would drop the record needle of my brain right back on, “[inhale] I don’t want… [exhale] anybody else… [inhale] when I think about you… [exhale] I touch myself… ooh ooh ooh…”
The flat
Finally we reached sea level again, and I knew we’d run up every hill we possibly could and it would be flat all the way back to the finish. That’s when my legs fell off.
We ran a brief stretch back toward the bridge one final time, and then doubled back. This would be my first chance to see how far ahead of Trouble I was. She was my bad luck charm, and dammit, I refused to be beat by Trouble again. But I was having trouble focusing, and finding it incredibly difficult to keep my balance on the crumbling pavement while I searched for her in the stream of people coming toward me. I never did see her. If I had, I would have liked to find out her opinion on the floral print running tights running ahead of me. Was I really running so slowly that an ass that jiggly could be keeping up with me, or was it just an unflattering illusion and the print hid the ass of a thoroughbred?
With a couple of miles to go, we got off the slick asphalt and onto a packed sand trail along Crissy Field. Normally I would have been happy for the break from pavement, but the sand seemed to be sucking the power out of my legs ever since I’d gained 300lb a few miles back. Running in a straight line was still taking all of my concentration, even though there was no one coming in the other direction now. Then the guy in front of me started texting, or tweeting, or trying to find Eye of the Tiger on his phone or something. He suddenly slowed to a lope and started swerving like a drunk driver as he typed, “Can’t wait for brewskis after this half marathon. #hydrateordie” Suddenly he cut to the left and stepped ½ an inch in front of me. I used my best runner judo block and held up my hands looking shocked ready to push him down in front of me to cushion my fall if I tripped. By some tremendous powers of mental strength and focus I managed to step out of the way with a breathy, “whoa.”
Suddenly, from my other side I heard a girl say, “Get off your fucking phone, man.”
God bless you, I thought as the girl and I ran away from the tweeting Dude-Bro. Then I thought, ...when I think about you I touch myself...
The last mile
Back on the sidewalk for the last mile, I was counting down the inches to the finish. I told myself, I’m not allowed to check my watch again until I think of a positive adjective for every word in the alphabet. Amazing. Beautiful. Courageous… I touch myself… Daring... I got one for every letter but K. There just is no positive adjective that starts with K. Well, as I type this, I just realized “kind,” but that’s beside the point…
Finally I was within view of Fort Mason, where the finish was. But… I couldn’t see an arch. Why couldn’t I see the arch? There were 3 places that the finish could be: they could make us turn left into the shipyard parking lot for a flat finish, they could send us right onto Bay Street for a flat finish, or they could send us up the short steep climb into the park at Fort Mason. I got closer and closer and I still couldn’t tell. Finally, barely 100 yards away from where the road ended, I could see the runners ahead of me…
Oh fuck no!
… they had us finishing up that fucking hill! It’s only a short little 30-foot climb over less than .1 mile, so I told myself to gut it out. I gathered myself and ran fast up the little incline. As soon as I reached the top and saw the finish a mere 30 or 40 yards away, my body went, NOPE! You will walk right now, or you will puke your guts up.
I’m a puker. This was no idle threat. I did a quick scan of the sidelines and saw people standing shoulder to shoulder. If I tried to run, I would puke all over one of these nice people. With a nauseous, “wuh-oh” I started walking, and walked my ass right over that finish line. And just like a slap in the face, the announcer called out my goddamned name. Jerk.
Later, Richie Porte berated me for my decision. “But if you’d thrown up at the finish line, you would have been spewing magenta beet puke in your finishing photos! You missed your chance.” She’s right. That would have been the best thing ever
Gear
I waited a couple of minutes for Trouble to come through, and we started wandering around looking for our stuff. We crossed the park and went down the hill on the other side to where we’d dropped our stuff off. It wasn’t there. We climbed back up the hill and asked a warm-looking runner where she’d found her stuff. She pointed in a general direction and we followed her finger. We found 2 different signs pointing to gear, but pointing in opposite directions. Finally, we found an area barriered off. “Is this the gear tent,” we asked a guy inside.
“Yeah,” he said. “But there are a couple of guys checking ID’s at the entrance.” That was the stupidest thing I ever heard. This road race security was really taking it too far, especially with the lack of security at gear drop-off. I told the security guy as much, and that no runner runs with their fucking ID; that my ID was in my bag. He shrugged and let us in. We walked around in circles for a few seconds, looking for the piles of bags, but there was only the one tent…
“Trouble,” I said. “This isn’t the gear tent. It’s the BEER tent!”
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