20 miler done? CHECK!

With all the Yosemite blogging, I haven't talked much lately about my running. I was a good girl last week and got three days of running in. I did track with the Bay Side team Tuesday night, ran with Amy on Wednesday night, and then ran with Amy and Pam on Thursday evening. All the runs went well, despite my crappy eating throughout the week.

All week I was dreading the 20 miler coming up in San Francisco. I think I partially blocked it from my mind. But no matter how hard I tried to NOT think about it, the 20 miler wasn't going to go away :( Saturday AM I woke up at 4:45 to start getting ready. I ate a little more food than usual, knowing that I was going to need the energy, and then left for the Lafayette BART to meet Raji at 5:30. The weather forecast had mentioned rain and went I first left the house it was just lightly sprinkling. By the time Raji and I were headed through the tunnel on the way to the city, it was full on raining :( Great. We made it out to Ocean Beach about 6:20 and met up in the pitch black with all 5 Bay Area TNT teams in Golden Gate Park. Raji, Phil and I started out about 6:45 right after the first group went. The rain had pretty much stopped at this point, at least for now.

Our meeting point

Mentally, I broke this run up into three sections. The first roughly 6 mile section took us up the hill by the Cliff House, around Sea Cliff and then back down by the Cliff House to GGP. The 2nd leg was about 4 miles and went up through GGP, and then back down to the Great Highway. The 3rd, and longest section at slightly over 10 miles, took us out the Great Highway, around Lake Merced, and then back to GGP and the finish.

The first leg went pretty well. Right off the bat we had a big hill by the Cliff House, and then we were onto the Land's End trail.-- gorgeous trail and beautiful views but I could have down without the dozens of steps we had to climb. We got a nice tour through the fancy schmancy Sea Cliff homes (HI ROBIN WILLIAMS!!) before we hit a downhill to the turn around at mile three. Then it was back UP that hill :( back by the nice homes, up another long incline and then finally down a couple steep hills to the park. During the (very few) downhills, Phil kept reminding me to take it slow. Our game plan for the run was to take it easy up the hills, walking if we wanted to, and keep a nice, easy pace the rest of the time. Section 1... CHECK!!

I'm not in the pic, but this is one of the "inclines" we went up

Section 2 through GGP was very pretty, but it's basically one long incline all the way to the turn around. We ran by the bison, who obviously didn't mind the drizzle. We also ran by this pretty little stream and then a pretty big waterfall... hmmm, never noticed that before. We also ran by a bunch of high school kids who were in the park for some kind of track event. They were probably looking at all of us decked out running with our fuel belts and gels and wondering why we were all running so slow! At the turn around it was nice to know that for the next couple of miles back through the park it would be slightly downhill. When Phil and I came out of the park, I was feeling good, but not looking forward to the last, and longest, leg. :( Section 2... CHECK!!

Oooh, pretty waterfall

I had remember the trail along the Great Highway as generally flat, but with a slight incline all the way out to the zoo. In reality there were a lot more small ups and downs. It had also started to rain harder and we were soaked :( 10 more miles just seemed like so far so to make things easier, I decided to break this section down into thirds also... section 3a was out the Great Highway, 3b would be around Lake Merced and 3c was back along the Great Highway. I know, I'm a dork, but it really helps to break it up into smaller portions... it seems less daunting that way. Out the Great Highway was fine, then we ran up past the zoo and hit the water stop at Lake Merced. Section 3a... CHECK.

View from the Cliff House of Ocean Beach and the Great Highway

Then around the Lake we went. It had been quite a few years since I had run Lake Merced so in my mind I was picturing something like Lake Merritt... about 3 miles of a flat trail. The Lake Merced loop was actually more than 4 miles, and there were a lot of inclines (WHERE on earth were those downhills!?!). At this point Phil was starting to feel a little worse for wear. Everything was aching, sore and tight... probably from those bigger hills earlier in the course. He was a trooper though and we kept plugging away, even though that meant walking up all of the inclines, even if they were very slight inclines. We hit the last Lake Merced water stop and ran into Mama Lisa. She was helping a couple of people who were feeling not so hot. Section 3b... CHECK. Thank god, only one more section left :D

Phil wasn't feeling good at all so we just walked for awhile past the zoo and back down to the Great Highway. At the corner we saw Cappy Jeanette driving by and flagged her down to come pick up Phil. Phil is one of the most mentally "tough" people I know so when he couldn't go any further, I knew it was because his body just couldn't take it anymore. He rocked for 18 miles, and helped keep me motivated the whole time! After he and Jeanette took off in the car, I took off back down the Great Highway for the last 3 miles. Surprisingly, I felt really good. Sure, things were sore, my feet hurt, my gels and electrolytes weren't mixing so well in my stomach, but my back wasn't bothering me much at all, the rain had stopped, and I mentally felt great! I spent the last 3 miles enjoying the view of the ocean, the hot surfers, and the cute little homes along the Great Highway. I really had to go to the bathroom at the end so instead of running to the "finish line" where the team was, I stopped a little sooner at the Beach Chalet to go potty. Section 3c... CHECK!!! Finally time for a hair short of 21 miles... 4:20. Thank god that was over! I got a post race massage, visited with a few people and then Raji and I headed home.

The rest of Saturday I spent cleaning, sleeping and watching some tv. Sunday I slept in and then did a little laundry before heading off to the Walnut Festival to see Jeanette's band play. After that Claudia, Amy, Anita and I went over to our friend Lindy's house for our Stitch N'Bitch. We did a little bit of stitching, but mostly spent the evening chatting, eating, and drinking wine and some of Lindy's homemade Limoncello!