![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ursamajorI started out 2024 with my first-ever 5k, thanks to friends who persuaded me I didn't have to run if I didn't want to; we would just walk one together, and chat, and then drink hot chocolate and go home with cute jackets. That went well enough that I then fell into a pattern of doing monthly races with friends - the Chinatown 5k in February, the Oakland Marathon 5k in March, and then the Cherry Blossom virtual race in April because there wasn't a local race I was interested in for that month.
And then I got sick right after the Cherry Blossom race and fell off the calendar. May was basically a wash; I missed both the San Jose 8k and the Presidio 5k in June that my friends were doing. But next up: the San Francisco Marathon at the end of July, so I signed up for the Saturday 5k whilehyounpark signed up for the Sunday half marathon. And in the meantime, I started actually working on a vaguely Couch to 5k plan, tested out various interval combinations, and resolved to try that for my race.
It was foggy and chilly and on the borderline between mist and drizzle, but it was lovely to be out somewhere pretty. I'm on the slower side; I finished in the last 20% of racers. But I also got to see a lot of cute dogs, and play encouraging auntie-type to a lot of kids racing with their parents. And there were definitely a few other racers doing a very similar interval pattern to me, where we kept passing each other and then catching up to each other, so it made me feel more reassured that I wasn't "doing it wrong," thank you anxiety brain.
There were some hiccups.
* By the time I got to the finish line, they had almost entirely run out of food - all they had left was water and 100-calorie packs of pretzels, so that was minorly annoying. We pivoted and drove to Breadbelly for breakfast, but I felt really bad for all of the families coming in around the same time who were expecting to at least have bananas and maybe some orange juice for the kids, along with granola and Nuun and even wine based on this picture from the 5k signup page.
* We were supposed to get totes and towels for completing the race - the totes were handed out in a fairly orderly manner, but the people giving out the towels were unloading them from the top of a huge pickup truck, and the people on the left side were throwing the towels haphazardly into the crowd as if they were operating a t-shirt cannon. I figured out that the people on the right side were handing the towels out in a proper line, and they were getting towels out to far more people than on the left side.
* The closest we could park was 3/4 of a mile away, but to be fair,hyounpark, 25-year race veteran, reassured me that that part was completely normal. I was just mildly annoyed because the website told us to park somewhere closer but when we tried to go there, it was blocked off. Ah well. And we would have tried to take public transit there to avoid the irritations of parking, but we couldn't have gotten there in time.
But they had portapotties reasonably close to the start/finish line, the volunteers handing out the water were friendly and efficient and encouraging, and I was mostly able to stick to my plan and feel accomplished but not totally gassed at the end.
Consider this foreshadowing for our experience of the half marathon the next day.
So I messaged my friends who I knew were doing other races in the same event - one doing the 10k, another doing the Sunday 5k, and let them know they might want to bring a bit more food than they were planning on. H packed up a few more bars and goos and electrolyte drinks into my tote bag for afterwards, and I planned to supplement with whatever nice baked good treat I could find along the way.
Then I needed to figure out how I was getting myself 3.4 miles from the start line at Crissy Field to the finish line in Golden Gate Park, but the entire SFMTA website was offline most of the day Saturday. Ugh, fine; I planned to dress as if I was going to have to walk the entire way, moved everything from my tote to a backpack for better hikeability.
And then we got the news that BART was down in the East Bay because of electrical problems. They wouldn't manage to fully restore service until almost 11 am the next day.
How we'd planned to get to the race: we'd purchased two shuttle tickets from the San Francisco Marathon website to get us to the start line in the Presidio. There were also shuttles from the finish line in Golden Gate Park back to the Embarcadero, where we had been planning to catch BART home.
This did mean that for Sunday's 7 am race, we had to leave home at 3:45 am to catch the 4:05 shuttle into the city to arrive at 4:30 at the Embarcadero where the other races were being held. And then we were supposed to wait around for another hour outside somewhere until the race shuttles to the Presidio for the half marathon started running at 5:45 am? Ugh, I added more layering options, knowing it was going to be in the 50s and damp, and that finding anything open at that hour on a Sunday seemed ... unlikely.
(For Saturday's 7 am race, we left home at 5:45 am and were parking at Crissy Field by 6:25 am, and consequently got two more hours of sleep. What we get for trying to do our part for the environment and take mass transit options when offered! :P )
So far, this feels mildly annoying but manageable.
Sunday morning:
3:15 am: wake up
3:45 am: walk to shuttle pickup
4:00 am: get on first leg of shuttle to Embarcadero
4:30ish: arrive at the Embarcadero, try to find anyone or anything open to occupy ourselves somewhere warm, fail, walk around to stay warm.
5:00 am: realize the full marathon is about to start and walk over to their start line, watch the kickoff.
5:30 am: walk over to shuttle pickup for the second leg over to the Presidio for the start of H's race. Get in an argument with the organizer who asks to see our BIBS, not our email for the shuttle tickets. I, being a spectator and not running the half marathon, obviously do not have such a bib
5:45 am: they relent and let me on, but tell me I can't do this in the future. Great, does this mean I can't take the shuttle back from the finish line to the Embarcadero either? Even though I HAVE A PAID-FOR TICKET? (I keep my mouth shut, I already have enough transportation worries to be getting on with.)
6:15 am: arrive at shuttle drop-off point, start walking the 0.8 miles to the start line. Pass what we don't realize are the only open toilets in the area, remembering that there were tons of portapotties at the start line at the same location for the 5k the day before.
6:30 am: arrive at the start line, realize THE PORTAPOTTIES ARE GONE. Wander around looking for a bathroom, reasoning that there has to be one closer to the start than THREE QUARTERS OF A MILE AWAY. The bathrooms at the Presidio Transit Center up the hill are locked until 7 am. There are a couple of trailer bathrooms - literally, two - and the line to use them is long. Get in line.
6:45 am: finally get through the bathroom line, sprint down towards the start line. Along the way, I see some kind Presidio employees unlocking the actual bathrooms, and the line for the trailer bathrooms is long enough people are going to miss the start, so I run back and tell them while H sprints to his corral, forgetting to pass me his heavy jacket he hadn't planned to run with.
6:50 am: series of miscommunications means Hyoun thinks I've already left, so he sprints up a different hill to the school buses that are apparently gear check? None of this has remotely sufficient signage, by the way. Not how to find the shuttles, the gear check, anywhere to pee.
7 am: H is off! I finally get the SFMTA website to load, confirm that despite significant road closures for the races, I can pick up the 43 bus up the hill at the Transit Center and get out of the Presidio.
7:20 am: catch the 43 out of the park, transfer to the 1, and make my way over to Arsicault to pick up croissants for post-race treats.
7:45 am: Of course there's a line even though I arrived 15 minutes before opening. Chat with other line denizens, half of us ended up being fellow race spectators with the Exact Same Brilliant Idea for where to stop for breakfast between the start and finish lines.
8:15 am: But Arsicault's got their friendly efficiency game down, and despite me being a dozen or so parties back in line, I quickly have my goodies in hand, and start wandering down Clement. The farmers' market won't open for another 45 minutes, but I'm enjoying myself watching them get set up.
8:20 am: Oh wait, somebody else is open! I stop in front of Eats, look at the menu, look at the ample seating in the parklet, and promptly sit myself down for the Maitake soft scramble. The eggs are delicious, the toast is buttery, but it's the potatoes that are a freaking REVELATION. I'm not a fried potatoes person. Hash browns? Great. Mashed potatoes? Even better. Fried potatoes? Eh, sure, H will eat them, he's running 13.1 miles and will probably be hungry. But I try one, and, well, mind blown. Crisp to perfection on the outside, which I later learn is because they do a triple fry on them, like a logical extension of how Korean fried chicken does a double fry.
8:50 am: Check H on the race tracker, realize he's within half an hour of finishing and that I should get going. Walk the mile up and over to the finish line.
9:25 am: H finishes! I start trying to find him.
9:35 am: H texts me that his calves have cramped up and he can't get up. I spend the next 65 MINUTES combing every inch of the Rose Garden area trying to find him. It is just a wall of humanity asking, "Where are we supposed to get X?" Again, there are no signs for where anything is - where you're supposed to pick up your race totes, race towels, race shirts, race jackets, medals, food, bathrooms, gear check, medics, post-race shuttles, not even "entrance" or "exit." And my phone is running out of battery, to make things worse.
10:45 am (yes, TEN, not nine): I finally find him in line to pick up his race jacket, pour electrolyte drinks and supplemental goo into him. He is cramping up badly enough that we decide to not wait for his jacket any longer, and start trying to find our way out of the park to the shuttles.
11:00 am: We emerge from the park, spot what looks like shuttles a block away, and walk towards them. NOPE, they are the "second wave" of shuttles; the actual shuttles we can board are four blocks the other direction. Again, ZERO SIGNAGE.
11:10 am: Board the shuttles. Am not challenged for my bib, thank fuck, because I am ready to rip everyone a new one if so.
11:15 am: Check BART site, see that it is FINALLY back online as of 11 am; the red line isn't running, but we can do yellow to orange and GO HOME.
11:55 am: arrive back downtown, walk to the Embarcadero BART.
12:10 pm: get on a yellow line train.
12:25 pm: get out at 19th to transfer, but with all the problems, there's no timed transfer.
12:40 pm: orange line train pulls into 19th, we get on
1:10 pm: WE. ARE. HOME. H's post to his Facebook about how this is the least organized race he has ever been in and he will not sign up for it again is getting traction among our friends, lol. But he, unsurprisingly, is ready for a nap. But he also really wants a burger.
Moral of the story? I am even more grateful that my first 5k got to be such a smoothly-run, professional experience, thanks to the reassuring competency of the Hot Chocolate Run organizers. That made me feel encouraged to keep going, accomplished for having taken the first step, instead of a slow-ass reject who wasn't worth making sure there'd be food for post-race when it had been advertised. That they had the sense to give us all of our swag at the expo the day before except for the food and medals, or even mail it to us beforehand, rather than try to distribute it amidst the pandemonium of the finish line. That THEY BELIEVED IN SUFFICIENT SIGNAGE.
(This is also why H never got his Bay to Breakers shirt, either, the finish line chaos there wasn't quite as bad, but the shirt line was an hour long, and who wants to stand around waiting in line for another hour after you've been running for two hours? Makes me suspect they under-order on the swag you paid extra for.
In addition, I earned a "challenge medal" by doing both Oakland and San Francisco this year, and so did Hyoun, and said medals hadn't arrived for distribution in time, so we need to email the organizers about getting them mailed to us tomorrow. And I figure we might as well ask about him getting his jacket sent as well, given ALL OF THE ABOVE. But I've also found out that the same people who run the San Francisco Marathon are the same people who run the Berkeley Half, so I am Really Not Sure I want to give these people my money again even for a 5k. Which makes me sad, because that's probably my closest actually-local race. At least the Giant Race I'm doing with friends in a few weeks has different management, so we'll see how well that's run? And maybe I'll find an orange tutu to wear for it?
And now? Today was a 19,000 step day on the day I wasn't even running a race, yesterday was a 14,000 step day with my 5k, and I have been up for almost 21 hours. So to quote the sagacious Mr. Samuel L Jackson, I am now GOING THE FUCK TO SLEEP.
And then I got sick right after the Cherry Blossom race and fell off the calendar. May was basically a wash; I missed both the San Jose 8k and the Presidio 5k in June that my friends were doing. But next up: the San Francisco Marathon at the end of July, so I signed up for the Saturday 5k while
hyounpark signed up for the Sunday half marathon. And in the meantime, I started actually working on a vaguely Couch to 5k plan, tested out various interval combinations, and resolved to try that for my race.It was foggy and chilly and on the borderline between mist and drizzle, but it was lovely to be out somewhere pretty. I'm on the slower side; I finished in the last 20% of racers. But I also got to see a lot of cute dogs, and play encouraging auntie-type to a lot of kids racing with their parents. And there were definitely a few other racers doing a very similar interval pattern to me, where we kept passing each other and then catching up to each other, so it made me feel more reassured that I wasn't "doing it wrong," thank you anxiety brain.
There were some hiccups.
* By the time I got to the finish line, they had almost entirely run out of food - all they had left was water and 100-calorie packs of pretzels, so that was minorly annoying. We pivoted and drove to Breadbelly for breakfast, but I felt really bad for all of the families coming in around the same time who were expecting to at least have bananas and maybe some orange juice for the kids, along with granola and Nuun and even wine based on this picture from the 5k signup page.
* We were supposed to get totes and towels for completing the race - the totes were handed out in a fairly orderly manner, but the people giving out the towels were unloading them from the top of a huge pickup truck, and the people on the left side were throwing the towels haphazardly into the crowd as if they were operating a t-shirt cannon. I figured out that the people on the right side were handing the towels out in a proper line, and they were getting towels out to far more people than on the left side.
* The closest we could park was 3/4 of a mile away, but to be fair,
hyounpark, 25-year race veteran, reassured me that that part was completely normal. I was just mildly annoyed because the website told us to park somewhere closer but when we tried to go there, it was blocked off. Ah well. And we would have tried to take public transit there to avoid the irritations of parking, but we couldn't have gotten there in time.But they had portapotties reasonably close to the start/finish line, the volunteers handing out the water were friendly and efficient and encouraging, and I was mostly able to stick to my plan and feel accomplished but not totally gassed at the end.
Consider this foreshadowing for our experience of the half marathon the next day.
So I messaged my friends who I knew were doing other races in the same event - one doing the 10k, another doing the Sunday 5k, and let them know they might want to bring a bit more food than they were planning on. H packed up a few more bars and goos and electrolyte drinks into my tote bag for afterwards, and I planned to supplement with whatever nice baked good treat I could find along the way.
Then I needed to figure out how I was getting myself 3.4 miles from the start line at Crissy Field to the finish line in Golden Gate Park, but the entire SFMTA website was offline most of the day Saturday. Ugh, fine; I planned to dress as if I was going to have to walk the entire way, moved everything from my tote to a backpack for better hikeability.
And then we got the news that BART was down in the East Bay because of electrical problems. They wouldn't manage to fully restore service until almost 11 am the next day.
How we'd planned to get to the race: we'd purchased two shuttle tickets from the San Francisco Marathon website to get us to the start line in the Presidio. There were also shuttles from the finish line in Golden Gate Park back to the Embarcadero, where we had been planning to catch BART home.
This did mean that for Sunday's 7 am race, we had to leave home at 3:45 am to catch the 4:05 shuttle into the city to arrive at 4:30 at the Embarcadero where the other races were being held. And then we were supposed to wait around for another hour outside somewhere until the race shuttles to the Presidio for the half marathon started running at 5:45 am? Ugh, I added more layering options, knowing it was going to be in the 50s and damp, and that finding anything open at that hour on a Sunday seemed ... unlikely.
(For Saturday's 7 am race, we left home at 5:45 am and were parking at Crissy Field by 6:25 am, and consequently got two more hours of sleep. What we get for trying to do our part for the environment and take mass transit options when offered! :P )
So far, this feels mildly annoying but manageable.
Sunday morning:
3:15 am: wake up
3:45 am: walk to shuttle pickup
4:00 am: get on first leg of shuttle to Embarcadero
4:30ish: arrive at the Embarcadero, try to find anyone or anything open to occupy ourselves somewhere warm, fail, walk around to stay warm.
5:00 am: realize the full marathon is about to start and walk over to their start line, watch the kickoff.
5:30 am: walk over to shuttle pickup for the second leg over to the Presidio for the start of H's race. Get in an argument with the organizer who asks to see our BIBS, not our email for the shuttle tickets. I, being a spectator and not running the half marathon, obviously do not have such a bib
5:45 am: they relent and let me on, but tell me I can't do this in the future. Great, does this mean I can't take the shuttle back from the finish line to the Embarcadero either? Even though I HAVE A PAID-FOR TICKET? (I keep my mouth shut, I already have enough transportation worries to be getting on with.)
6:15 am: arrive at shuttle drop-off point, start walking the 0.8 miles to the start line. Pass what we don't realize are the only open toilets in the area, remembering that there were tons of portapotties at the start line at the same location for the 5k the day before.
6:30 am: arrive at the start line, realize THE PORTAPOTTIES ARE GONE. Wander around looking for a bathroom, reasoning that there has to be one closer to the start than THREE QUARTERS OF A MILE AWAY. The bathrooms at the Presidio Transit Center up the hill are locked until 7 am. There are a couple of trailer bathrooms - literally, two - and the line to use them is long. Get in line.
6:45 am: finally get through the bathroom line, sprint down towards the start line. Along the way, I see some kind Presidio employees unlocking the actual bathrooms, and the line for the trailer bathrooms is long enough people are going to miss the start, so I run back and tell them while H sprints to his corral, forgetting to pass me his heavy jacket he hadn't planned to run with.
6:50 am: series of miscommunications means Hyoun thinks I've already left, so he sprints up a different hill to the school buses that are apparently gear check? None of this has remotely sufficient signage, by the way. Not how to find the shuttles, the gear check, anywhere to pee.
7 am: H is off! I finally get the SFMTA website to load, confirm that despite significant road closures for the races, I can pick up the 43 bus up the hill at the Transit Center and get out of the Presidio.
7:20 am: catch the 43 out of the park, transfer to the 1, and make my way over to Arsicault to pick up croissants for post-race treats.
7:45 am: Of course there's a line even though I arrived 15 minutes before opening. Chat with other line denizens, half of us ended up being fellow race spectators with the Exact Same Brilliant Idea for where to stop for breakfast between the start and finish lines.
8:15 am: But Arsicault's got their friendly efficiency game down, and despite me being a dozen or so parties back in line, I quickly have my goodies in hand, and start wandering down Clement. The farmers' market won't open for another 45 minutes, but I'm enjoying myself watching them get set up.
8:20 am: Oh wait, somebody else is open! I stop in front of Eats, look at the menu, look at the ample seating in the parklet, and promptly sit myself down for the Maitake soft scramble. The eggs are delicious, the toast is buttery, but it's the potatoes that are a freaking REVELATION. I'm not a fried potatoes person. Hash browns? Great. Mashed potatoes? Even better. Fried potatoes? Eh, sure, H will eat them, he's running 13.1 miles and will probably be hungry. But I try one, and, well, mind blown. Crisp to perfection on the outside, which I later learn is because they do a triple fry on them, like a logical extension of how Korean fried chicken does a double fry.
8:50 am: Check H on the race tracker, realize he's within half an hour of finishing and that I should get going. Walk the mile up and over to the finish line.
9:25 am: H finishes! I start trying to find him.
9:35 am: H texts me that his calves have cramped up and he can't get up. I spend the next 65 MINUTES combing every inch of the Rose Garden area trying to find him. It is just a wall of humanity asking, "Where are we supposed to get X?" Again, there are no signs for where anything is - where you're supposed to pick up your race totes, race towels, race shirts, race jackets, medals, food, bathrooms, gear check, medics, post-race shuttles, not even "entrance" or "exit." And my phone is running out of battery, to make things worse.
10:45 am (yes, TEN, not nine): I finally find him in line to pick up his race jacket, pour electrolyte drinks and supplemental goo into him. He is cramping up badly enough that we decide to not wait for his jacket any longer, and start trying to find our way out of the park to the shuttles.
11:00 am: We emerge from the park, spot what looks like shuttles a block away, and walk towards them. NOPE, they are the "second wave" of shuttles; the actual shuttles we can board are four blocks the other direction. Again, ZERO SIGNAGE.
11:10 am: Board the shuttles. Am not challenged for my bib, thank fuck, because I am ready to rip everyone a new one if so.
11:15 am: Check BART site, see that it is FINALLY back online as of 11 am; the red line isn't running, but we can do yellow to orange and GO HOME.
11:55 am: arrive back downtown, walk to the Embarcadero BART.
12:10 pm: get on a yellow line train.
12:25 pm: get out at 19th to transfer, but with all the problems, there's no timed transfer.
12:40 pm: orange line train pulls into 19th, we get on
1:10 pm: WE. ARE. HOME. H's post to his Facebook about how this is the least organized race he has ever been in and he will not sign up for it again is getting traction among our friends, lol. But he, unsurprisingly, is ready for a nap. But he also really wants a burger.
Moral of the story? I am even more grateful that my first 5k got to be such a smoothly-run, professional experience, thanks to the reassuring competency of the Hot Chocolate Run organizers. That made me feel encouraged to keep going, accomplished for having taken the first step, instead of a slow-ass reject who wasn't worth making sure there'd be food for post-race when it had been advertised. That they had the sense to give us all of our swag at the expo the day before except for the food and medals, or even mail it to us beforehand, rather than try to distribute it amidst the pandemonium of the finish line. That THEY BELIEVED IN SUFFICIENT SIGNAGE.
(This is also why H never got his Bay to Breakers shirt, either, the finish line chaos there wasn't quite as bad, but the shirt line was an hour long, and who wants to stand around waiting in line for another hour after you've been running for two hours? Makes me suspect they under-order on the swag you paid extra for.
In addition, I earned a "challenge medal" by doing both Oakland and San Francisco this year, and so did Hyoun, and said medals hadn't arrived for distribution in time, so we need to email the organizers about getting them mailed to us tomorrow. And I figure we might as well ask about him getting his jacket sent as well, given ALL OF THE ABOVE. But I've also found out that the same people who run the San Francisco Marathon are the same people who run the Berkeley Half, so I am Really Not Sure I want to give these people my money again even for a 5k. Which makes me sad, because that's probably my closest actually-local race. At least the Giant Race I'm doing with friends in a few weeks has different management, so we'll see how well that's run? And maybe I'll find an orange tutu to wear for it?
And now? Today was a 19,000 step day on the day I wasn't even running a race, yesterday was a 14,000 step day with my 5k, and I have been up for almost 21 hours. So to quote the sagacious Mr. Samuel L Jackson, I am now GOING THE FUCK TO SLEEP.
