Filed under: Races
I gave up the precious offering of a free Springsteen ticket so as to carbo load and hit the sack early before a 10 mile race. Sure, I’ve done 13.1 before, but that was more than a year ago! Plus, well…this winter has been heavy on pastries and light on running. And heck, the Presidio 10 takes one across the Golden gate and benefits the guardsmen & Ashlyn Dyer foundation.
My sweetheart insists we MUST eat at Trattoria la siciliana on
College Avedespite the fact that the waits are atrocious. This time, we made an 8pm reservation.
After an hour and 20 minutes of waiting while fragrant plateloads of food ferry by, we gorge ourselves. Gnocchi, lamb, eggplant, sauces, risotto, multiple desserts and wine. Roasted garlic and hearty flavors linger in our mouths. The clean, satisfying YUM of good quality food and straight cookin’. (as opposed to the odd aftermath of msg-or preservative, grease laden whacked out mass produced, standard restaurant fare.)
Sigh. That friggin’ wait was pretty ridiculous. But all is forgiven when that food appeared. It’s kind of like getting pissed off at your chronically, inconsiderately late lover…and then your anger evaporating when s/he shows up looking fab & kisses you.
The next morn, 6 a.m. I STILL feel heavy with Italian food. We layer up in the cold morning and head through slumbering Oakland to pick up Sean. I meet Yee-Min’s friend from work, Sean is a fellow former USMC. He bops outta the house in shorts and a special forces Tee, kissing his dark haired wife farewell.
“She’s a welder, she even teaches welding.” Yee min shared.
How cool is that?
Over the bridge and to Kevin’s. I stare at the youth hostel and imagine the goings on. Fantasize about traveling abroad. Kevin comes downstairs and we’re off to Presidio.
Mile 1 through 3 are typically brutal for me. I can’t seem to rev up properly or pace the breathing right for the first couple miles. The discomfort used to lead to my bailing out. By now I’ve learned to tough it out and wait for the moment 20 minutes or so into it when suddenly, miraculously, my lungs don’t feel any strain and the muscles are all in sync.
But it didn’t help that our dash through the Presidio began sloping up, and around, and up, and up. The enthused pack that bolted from the starting gate begin to thin. The guys look back at me. ‘How are you doing?”
“great!” Big grin, disconcordant with my labored chug-chug.
“How are you feeling?”
“Damned hot.”
Time to start shedding layers.
“I am having flashbacks to the Oyster race.” TK bicycled around these treacherous roads with me as my quads screamed. Our team practiced on this road until skunk and nightfall made us turn back. Here I am yet again. Clearly I am more of a masochist than I had imagined. Around mile 3, they handed out Clif Blox. These are big gummy cubes or electrolytes and other energy sources so you don’t bonk out during a distance event. I love these at triathlon time, because I think all the Gu and Clif Shots are nasty as heck, but one does need fuel. So I often eat a bag of blox while on my bike. But how does one chew up a blox while running non stop? The guys cheeked it in their mouths like squirrels…where they dissolved quite slowly for a reported 3 more miles. Someone gave me an orange slice which I sucked dry and discarded in 2 steps. OMG. At this point that is like the BEST tasting orange of my entire life.
By Mile 4, we hit the
Golden Gate Bridge, and it is one of the postcard-perfect days when the city by the bay shines brilliantly in that California glow. We run to Marin, and promptly round the corner to stairs that wind us back toward SF. At the last few miles we start to become more organized, ‘Ok, Helen takes a picture by the Mile 6 sign, Yee Min can be 7, I’ll be 8, Sean will be 9…”
"Are ya’ll masochists or sadists?" I ask, since it does strike me as funny that we all paid good money to get up early and subject ourselves to a certain level of pain. The guys all declare themselves sadists. But I kinda doubt that…
By Mile 8 I am deliriously happy because I realize for sure that I am gonna make it to the end! We pass a loop of 10K runners and Yee Min inadvertently mocks them as he loudly laments our travails in comparison to theirs. At Mile 9 Sean does a handstand and looks barely impacted from our jaunt.
Kevin manages to take over 300 photos all while in motion, and when we peruse the album later, (pared to a more manageable 150) we all look like overly happy, chipper, dorks. But at least like healthy and vibrant dorks. With grins like that no one is gonna believe that was actually kinda hard. At least for me, I know the guys took a leisurely pace for me, and let me hit the finish line before them. Which surprised me, since I am quite used to total acceptance of run partners who leave me in the dust! Then again, my ‘easy’ pace was certainly comfy for them as well.
For the entire last mile, we were making a chant of all the things we lusted for at the finish line. “Beer!” “Bacon!” “Food!”
When we run near my ‘hood Yee Min and I go for waffles to compensate for all possible calories burned. He said that after the Chinatown run people stood at the finish proffering those ubiquitous pink pastry boxes – brimming with egg custard tarts. I gotta say, these Presidio folks put on a great run! Giant orange balloon columns festooned the area, and there was serious swag and treats. At the finish line the first question asked of me was ‘Would you like a Bloody Mary?”
Well. Hello! These are my kinda people…
There was Peet’s coffee (YES!!!), said Bloody Marys, beer, Accelerade, breakfast burritos and ham croissants from Asqew, pop chips, and a breakfast bar. Whew, This sure beats the usual bananas and water at the end of most races! A live band rocked out and we took victorious pics at the Mile 10 sign.
Now I’ve added more friends to my posse of runnin’ friends. Sean is trying to convince us all to do the Bakersfield Mud Run this fall…running & mud I’ve done 4 years in a row at Muddy Buddy. But whereas MuddyBuddy features about 6 obstacles, this Bakersfield sports like…70!? Let’s see how the rest of the training year goes…
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