Bay to Breakers....On Repeat

I can't believe it, I'm running Bay to Breakers again. I said I'd never do it again because there were just too many people running the race and too many drunks you had to literally run around and over.  And too many naked old men....YES, naked old men!!!  You can read my post from last year here.  Well, when a couple of friends said they had signed up, I figured what the hell. They won't be running it for time, just to have fun.  And there's lots of fun to be had in this race!

I had to get new shoes for this race because my old ones needed to be retired.  The only good thing about this race is that the start is only 3 blocks from my house!  This is the 103 year the race has taken over the streets of San Francisco.  Here's a little background about the race, I just love how everything in this city has this incredible history:

At 5:13am on April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake destined to become one of history’s most notorious natural disasters rocked San Francisco.
The subsequent fire and destruction were unimaginable, and many feared the City would never fully recover. But San Franciscans, displaying their typical fortitude, immediately began rebuilding the city and orchestrating events to lift civic morale. One of those events, the Cross City Race – better known today as the Zappos.com Bay to Breakers – was first held on January 1, 1912. It was intended as a precursor to the world-class athletic events being planned for the 1915 Pan Pacific International Exposition. There were 218 registrants, 186 starters, and 121 finishers. Robert Jackson “Bobby” Vlught, a St. Mary’s College student, was the first runner to cross the finish line, with a time of 44:10.

FIVE HUNDRED...SAY WHAT?!?!?!

HOLY COW!!! 500 posts! I've written FIVE HUNDRED BLOG POSTS....saaaayy WHHHAAATTT?!?!?!?

This blog has been through a lot, from moving home from London, trials and tribulations of living in a small(er) town again, moving to D.C. and finally resting in my current city of San Francisco.  I don't do it for money or fame, its just fun to write everything down and see where my travels have taken me over the years!  I talk about my sorority, Junior League, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, volunteering, vacations and everything in between.

Hope you enjoy my travels as much as I do!

Four Courts Four Miler

Instead of running the Shamrock Half like I have before in 2013 and 2012 and 2010, I decided that we should run the Four Courts Four Miler this year! I've always been sad because its the same weekend and there's no way I could run this race and then drive down to Virginia Beach for a half the next day. I mean, I could theoretically do it, but I want to be able to drink and enjoy St. Patty's Day and I wouldn't be able to do both in one weekend.

I just had to convince my father its as a better idea. That took all of 2 minutes. Ha. I will say this race is awesome, however the last mile is STRAIGHT UP A HILL. This was actually one of my WORST races ever. I guess I was hungry or really out of shape because after mile 1, I had this sharp (and I mean SHARP) pain up under my rib cage and I kept having to stop and breathe. I lost my dad after mile 1 and he went ahead and killed the race!

It may not have been my best race, but it was pretty fun!  My dad is going to have to fly to SF a lot so that he can run some races with me!

The music started at 8 am and people are already out and about enjoying the party.

LOVED this guy! He played really well too.

We will run for beer!

Race for Every Child 5K DC

Back where there was warmer temperatures, our alumnae chapter teamed with American's Gamma Delta Chapter to run the Race for the Every Child 5K in DC.  They did a WONDERFUL job and raised almost $6,000! We had a blast celebrating…too bad it was so hot that I ran a horrible race, but at least I finished :)

And CRAZY, Ezra from Pretty Little Liars was there too!!! Apparently Ian raised almost $7K for the race as well! I didn't personally see him, but lots of girls from the chapter did! Man, I wish I had stayed around afterwards.

Race for the Children 5K

Some of the ladies running the 5K

This past weekend I joined my sorority to run a 5K for Children's Miracle Network in DC. It was SUPER hot (almost 80 degrees) in OCTOBER. WHY?!?!?!?! UGH. But the AU Chapter and the D.C. Alumnae Chapter raised $6,000 for CMN! You can still donate here.

People lining up before the start

Another group picture....of course!

Excuse the instagram pictures, but we're on the sponsors banner!

UM....some sisters met Ian Harding (Ezra from PLL!!!!!) and taught him the quatrafoil sign! I have no idea why he's there particularly, but he raised $4K himself, and got a team together and they raised $6K! Apparently he's from Herndon. Who knew?!?!?!

Here is a better photo of him. HOW DID I MISS EZRA?!?!?!

Clarendon Day 5K

As part of Clarendon Day, there was a 5K and 10K in...you guessed it...Clarendon. I ran it with my work team (how fun!) and Buster was in town so he got to run it too. It was actually a really good race, Pacers Running Company knows how to put on a great race! It started at Whitlow's and ran down the hill to Rosslyn. Four Courts, Mexicali Blues and Whitlow's all sponsored a free drink after the race! We all finished (Buster won, with Kathleen a second behind) and I finished at 27. Meh, not the best, but not the worst of my races! Its been pretty hot recently, so I'm not used to running lately, much less when its almost 80 degrees!

My work team: Kathleen, Allison, Johnana (the boss lady) and myself

Already too hot so undressing a bit!

DUDE, this man ran in a suit! Total bro move buddy. Too many bros in Arlington already, we don't need another! But bad ass on doing this!

6th One Down: Nike Women's Half

Jess and I after the race

Omgeeeeeeeeee I wanted to back out of this race SO BADLY. I had zero interest in running it, my heart and head wasn't in it...so much that I even posted on FB to see if anyone wanted to purchase my bib. However, my cheapness got the better of me. This race costs 160 freaking dollars...yes, you read that right. ONE HUNDRED SIXTY DOLLARS! For that price, I'd want them to run it for me! Yeah, yeah, yeah that Tiffany's necklace was pretty, but I don't know about $160 worth.

As I mentioned several times before, I didn't mean to run this race in the first place. I definitely didn't want to run it the days leading up to that weekend. But, I put my big girl panties on and realized I've already run one of these in March and a 10 miler earlier that month. Suck it up cupcake and get over it. You're running it whether you like it or not.

This race had its positives and down right NEGATIVES. Having to pick up my race packet in GEORGETOWN?! NOOOOOOO say it isn't so!!!!! Not metro accessible and SUPER SUPER SUPER jam packed anyways!!! (But side note, I DID see Michael J. Fox in Georgetown randomly walking the street!) I get there on Saturday and there is a mile so long I'm afraid it reaches 13.1 miles long. Come to find out, there was a power outage and they couldn't process anything. Wait....what? Since when do we need a computer to pick up my bib? Well, because they wanted to be super fancy and just give us a bar code for them to scan. WTF?!?! There was no typical order to the numbers, it was just where we went to a station, they scanned our bar code and we got whatever number was next. Well, what about corals you ask? You got a PAPER BRACELET to signify what coral. Oh great, I have to wear a stupid paper bracelet while I run? Guess I just have to wear it for the start and can toss it and liter. Great.

Anyways, jump forward to race morning. There are so many people mushed up in wrong corals that I can't even get INTO my coral until after the start of the race. WTF?!?!? See below:

I've been in crowded corals before but I've always been able to get in while the next coral moves up to start, but this was ridiculous. Spectators cheering their wifes/daughters/friends were LITERALLY IN THE CORAL. GET OUT OF MY WAY IDIOT.

And that's not the worst of it! The gun goes off and what's that sound?! Oh that's only 15,000 runners STARTING AT THE SAME TIME!!!! There was no waiting time between corals. This only leads to pushing, running into each other, elbowing and people stepping on the back of your feet. It was pure chaos. I understand that this was most people's first race ever, but come on. Stop stepping on my heels, are you kidding me?

Okay, enough bitching. On to the good things.  There was a nice tribute to the Boston tragedy where the crowd went silent for 30 seconds and you could literally hear a pin drop. Getting 15,000 people silent is priceless. The course was beautiful and had some AMAZING entertainers. Twice we ran under this tunnel where there were 2 bands playing the drums and the acoustics were so awesome!! I could literally feel the vibrations from the music in my body. They gave out pretty great things along the course too, we got cliff blocks and Nuun water (not my thing, but not the typical Gatorade either).

During the race, I was okay really until mile 10 again. There was a pretty big hill at mile 10 where we came around the corner and I was like NOOOOOOOOOO SAY IT ISN'T SO!!!!! Then I walked a lot from there. I even had to stop right before the finish because I was like "um, I might vomit...shit". I crossed the finish line on a red carpet. How often do you get to do that?!!?!? And then men in tuxedos handed out that little blue box!!! They were probably so hot, but such good sports! I have to agree that they had a lot of goodies when you finished the race too! Bagels, bananas, protein bars, water, fruit cups and some more things too. And the shirts turned out really great too! I thought it was really weird that they made us finish the race before actually getting the shirt. I mean, I get it because it says "finisher" on it, but interesting because most people (not myself) wear the shirt the day of the race and run in it. Whatevs, to each his own.

And the BEST part was that there was a stretching tent afterwards!!!!! It was amazing to have a place to stretch out while not getting stepped on or freezing as you cool off. There were mats, stretching bands, and a person who could help yu stretch if you couldn't do it yourself. Can EVERY race have this please?!!?! Especially the Shamrock because you finish on the beach and you don't want sand sticking to every single sweat bead on your body.

Stretch it out ladies

No PR this time, but I did finish in 2:09...that's 8 minutes faster than last month! And this is the first ever half marathon that I ran by myself. I'm proud of myself because I didn't have my dad there to yell, "mind over matter, you don't mind...it don't matter". Though maybe I did secretly like not having to read it.

Ok, longest race recap ever is officially OVER. Now to enjoy pictures:

Hello tent!

Pretty cool high tech stuff in the tent

The course map. Me standing near that part that I really hate..Hains Point. It's long (4 miles long), cold and windy because its an island and there aren't many spectators because its in the middle of no where.

Pretty cool art work where you could add the reasons you run

#Werundc

Thankful that I didn't have to pedal to get my smoothy. Yes, that is a blender that is powered by a bike!

The glorious stretching lounge!

Pink overload. I had to bandage up my knees due to my lack of training..whoops

Professional photo of all of us starting. THIS.SHIT.IS.BANANAS.

At least my shirt was really pretty!

#swag

Up close and personal!

Had to rub out those muscles

An awesome message with my mom saying she was impressed by me!

And because there was so much social media afterwards, enjoy these other photos I borrowed from others.

Fun signs

Men in tuxes

A sign with everyone's name printed...I never saw this because it was on the side of the Nike store

This sign was amazing! It says "We know this is long and hard...since when did this become a bad thing?!"

Awesome signs along the course

This is an awesome shot!

Must.Keep.Running.

As I told you all last December, I accidentally signed myself up for two half marathons and a 10 miler in the span of a month and a half. Whoops. Well, I've toughed it out and finished the Shamrock Half on St. Patty's Day and the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler two weekends after that. All that's left to suffer through is the Nike Women's Half this weekend. At least I get a Tiffany's necklace out of it!

And its mostly the same course as the Cherry Blossom, I do like knowing where I'm at in relation to the course map. I don't like that I have to go to Georgetown to pick up my packet...ICK, ICK, ICK.

Oh well, I'll have to do exactly what this lady is saying on Sunday:

Cherry Blossom 10 Miler

As the 2nd of 3 big races I'm running this spring, I'll just say this one wasn't too bad. Not freezing like the Shamrock Half and not as hot as it looks like the Nike Half is going to be, it was, as in Goldilocks and the Three Bears "just right". Granted, I didn't train for this one either, at least I could keep telling myself at various mile markers, "well at least its not X+3.1 more miles." I wont be able to do that in 2 weeks when I run my last half. I signed up as a team and got some other D.C. Phi Mu girls to run the race too!

I do really enjoy running this particular race. Its is my second year running it, and even though I finished about 6 minutes slower this year, all in all, it wasn't too bad. As always, I had commentary running through my head. Never a race goes by that I'm not complaining in my head about this or that. But it did help to have lots of spectators cheering everyone on and having the funniest signs I've ever seen, e.g., "Only 9.5 miles to go"(at the .5 mile mark), "Holler if you're not wearing underpants". I love when spectators make it fun!

And then we followed it up with a boozy brunch at my favorite place with my favorite people!

Race day packet pick up was in the National Building Museum

My bib and corral

Of course I had to carbo-load the night before. The BF and I tried out a new FANTASTIC restaurant called Pupatella. It's in a random shopping center a little past Ballston. The pizza was amazing, well mine was more so than the BFs. I got the meatball pizza and it literally melted in my mouth!

You can see the scaffolding they are putting up in order to fix the cracks from the earth quake back in 2011. I hope they fix it and deem it safe again because I've always wanted to go to the top but never got a chance and they closed the monument after it sustained $15 million dollars worth of damage. Hopefully it will re-open in 2014.

Betsy and I before the race

Miracle of miracles, we finished.