San Francisco Marathon!

The day is here! My first marathon ever! To be honest, I've been in a bit of denial about the race the last few days, and especially this morning. I tried not to think about it, and just pretended I was going out for a small run. Marathons are so complicated, you have to make sure everything is perfect. You have to try out all your clothes beforehand to see what shoes, socks, shorts, etc all work. You have to use body glide, a slippery substance in a deodorant stick to avoid blisters. And you have to find a way to carry enough water and Gu (snacks) to get you through the race. I actually had a bad callus on my foot that has been causing me pain, so I was very worried about that for the race.

However, the day had come, and here we are about to begin the race!

The start was very exciting, and again, to avoid being nervous, I just didn't think about the 26.2 miles to come.

The San Francisco marathon is actually a half and a full marathon totaling 24,000 people. Only 6,000 people were doing the full marathon. This one is known for its route across and back the Golden Gate Bridge as well as the massive amounts of hills.

Here is a view of Alcatraz in the distance!

We encountered pretty flat ground for the first 3 miles and then started to go up until about mile 5. The Golden Gate in the distance!

Then we started crossing the bridge!

It is a 1.7 mile bridge that you run across, make a small turnaround, and then run back. Here we are on our way back across, around mile 8 or so.

Coming back into the city, you can see all the buildings in the background.

Can you see the hills?

Around mile 12, my first time getting to go with the full marathoners! :)

13.1! Halfway there!

Still feeling good! In fact, I was probably peaking around this time. I was excited to be running more than the half, and started speeding up through mile 15 or so.

A group decided to serve beer around mile 14 lol.

Dailymile was at mile 15, serving bacon!

Stephen ran into this 17 mile sign lol... we are all getting tired at this point.

Mile 20!!!

To be honest, I was feeling absolutely terrible by this point. Unless you have run a race this long, Im not sure how to explain it other than ABSOLUTE exhaustion. My legs locked up, the soles of my feet were hurting, and I was mentally exhausted. It's very discouraging to come so far and be SO tired, and still have 4 or 5 miles to go. That's still a decent run! It hurt to even walk!

I just had to shuffle the last few miles, along with lots of walking. The entire race I was afraid I wouldn't make the 6 hour cutoff, and that was my only goal. There are pacers along the way holding time signs and as long as you are ahead of them you kind of know where you stand, but we had lost track of them.

Dying at 25 miles... SO CLOSE...

So close, pictures before the end.

OMG ALMOST THERE! MILE 26!!!

We start getting really excited and try to sprint the finish. We throw our arms up and pass a bunch of people and sprint across the finish line!

The finish line!

DONE!!!

Us with our medals!

It hurt to walk, I could barely squat to sit down, but the medal, attention, and snacks felt so good! We got a TON of snacks, including a smoothie, water, juice, muscle milk, a yogurt parfait, cookie, scone, banana, cheese puffs, and corn puffs... yeah a ton.

Toughest marathon ever, us in front of a cool sign.

I was worried about finishing under 6 hours, but we actually did WAY better than that! It was a complete surprise, because there were no clocks and it was almost impossible to know when we started and finished. So we were both ecstatic to find out it only took us 5 hours and 10 minutes! That's Stephen's fastest time, and an amazing first marathon time! Especially for a very hard and hilly course!

So then we walked the mile back to our hotel... no... LIMPED the mile back to the hotel, took showers, ate a ton of our snacks, and took the biggest nap ever. When we woke up it was like 5:30. We planned to go to Weird Fish but apparently it's CLOSED on Sundays! ughghghg... we were starving and couldn't walk very far, so just went back to the mall's gourmet food court.

I got an unagi (eel) bowl with veggies, rice, and a side of seaweed salad.

Stephen got some spicy beef and noodles lol.

We went out for a celebratory drink at a local pub, and then came back to have the celebratory bottle of wine we bought a few days ago. Hey, its not every day you run your first marathon on your honeymoon.  (Wine pic to come) We tried to go swimming but it was late and apparently they were cleaning the pool and then CLOSED it ughghg. Oh well. Tomorrow is our last day here! I have had an absolutely amazing time wine tasting and running the marathon, but am happy to be going back as well! :)