B2B: a San Franciscan race

I ran Bay to Breakers yesterday! The course is 12km (7.45 miles) long. I managed to run the entire way because I was running with a friend. We had planned to take the Caltrain up to San Francisco but managed to get a ride. Normally, it is impossible to be in the city by Caltrain on a weekend at 8am. But Caltrain decided to run special services just for Bay to Breakers (B2B). The Caltrain was packed like crazy! I think they should've ran the newer trains because they have more room for standing. The trains were probably over capacity.

It was pretty chilly the whole day, around 50s and slightly windy. Once I warmed up, it was fine. We ran at a steady pace of 12 min/mile the entire way. I think I would've been able to speed up after I warmed up (2 miles) but after 2 miles, we hit the Hayes hill. That hill got pretty steep at the end. But we keep manage to hold a steady pace all the way up to the top. It was all downhill after that. Actually, at the end, I was kind of surprised at how fast it all went by. The end of the half marathon seemed to drag on forever. This race just had us exiting the park at the Great Highway and the finish was right around the corner. I spent a minute or two debating whether the big orange thing was actually the finish line.

Extremely sore today but otherwise, I think I'm doing fine. I felt fine cardo-wise. I think I was breathing only through my nose half the time. No panting or feeling short of breath at all.

There were a lot of crazy costumes. There were some middle school aged kids running as a centipede (tied together). They were cute. There were also many families. Definitely more diverse than the usual road race crowd. There were 33,000 people registered and probably around 60,000 people actually on the course. So crowded! We had were constantly dodging and passing people.

I ate a huge lunch when I got back and slept for a few hours before finishing up two homeworks while being bombarded by people on gchat. Getting up early for B2B was good because I have been getting up later and later on non-work days. This makes me feel tired when getting up for work, which I don't like. Only 3 more weeks left at work. 4 more weeks until the quarter is all over. These last few weeks always seem to drag by with no end in sight. It's worse this quarter since people at other schools are out for the summer, graduating, etc.