August 02, 2006
San Francisco Marathon
Half: 1:58:39 pace: 9:04
Finish: 4:33:32 pace: 10:26
As you can see from those numbers the second half of Sunday's marathon was tough for me! In fact for a while I wanted to quit the marathon and never run again. However I just kept taking one more step no matter how slow (and it was pretty slow) and somehow made it home. Not sure why I had problems from so early on (around mile 15 or so) because I've felt much stronger this year in general. But you can never tell when you're going to have a good or bad day. Also I have been running mostly on trails and the pavement really beat me up. Not to mention that there are some hills in San Francisco!
The course was beautiful, especially the first half. We started down at the Embarcadero and ran along the waterfront then out and back on the Golden Gate Bridge (a highlight!) then by the Presidio to Golden Gate Park. Finally down Haight, then onto 16th Street and past SBC Stadium back to the beginning. It was nice and cool at the start (5:50 am!) but the sun came out strong and it was a little hot for running by the second half.
I'm not sure when my next road marathon will be. Part of me says to stick with the trails and shorter road runs and another part of me wants to keep going for it until I can finish a road marathon strongly.
Posted by Dave at August 2, 2006 01:19 PM