SF half marathon

2/2/25

Today was my first half marathon and after a winter of only strength training, I was not prepared. Plus, the weather was cold and rainy, so I slept nervous. I woke up at 5am, drank pickle juice for sodium, and thought there’s no way I can run 13.1 miles and if needed I’ll just exit the race early. It was raining when we reached. I joined a swarm of runners in neon - most wearing full sleeves, black leggings, sweatpants, plastic bags, and hooded windbreakers - picked up my bib, and waited in the crowd.

Mile 1: 8am. The gun went off, I started my strava, and wasn’t sure how I was going to finish the race. The trick to long runs is to start excruciatingly slow. Slower than you think you should be going. After the mile 1 sign, I pictured my progress as 1/13, which I tried calculating but couldn’t (it’s around 7 percent), and that left me unsatisfied.

Mile 2: I felt surprisingly good in the rain. I debated whether I should take off my sweatpants in a corner and just run with the shorts I had on underneath, but I decided against this because 1, they’re waterproof sweatpants good for rainy conditions like this and 2, it’s too embarrassing to stop, take off your pants, throw them in a corner, and keep going. This is also when I started cramping up a little bit.

Mile 3: My cramps stopped. I drank some electrolytes. We entered Golden Gate Park and now everything was smooth sailing. We went past deYoung and the California Academy of Sciences. I kept looking out at the little exits and wondered whether anyone just left the race.

Mile 4: It started raining a bit harder, but Golden Gate Park looked beautiful. Running is just getting one foot in front of the another. Writing is just getting the reader from one sentence to the next. Life is just getting through one day and the other.

Mile 5: We crossed a river and I felt a desperate urge to jump in it.

Mile 6: We went downhill. I was familiar with this route. It’s a bit boring, but I was doing fine.

Mile 7-8: All thoughts left my head at this point. I was completely blank, other than seeing a water buffalo. I saw the tall, toned front-runners heading towards the finish line.

Mile 9: Terror. Horror. We exited Golden Gate park and started running next to the ocean. The wind and rain was blowing in full force towards us. I got drenched, my sweatpants became heavy, I got super slow and leaned forward.

Mile 10: Hopeless. I didn’t know how I was going to finish. This is the first time I stopped during the race to walk because I didn’t know when we would turn back. When you don’t know when the pain is over, it’s hard to withstand. I thought of my friend Elijah. We were once on a tough hike and we got through it by setting landmarks for ourselves: we’ll stop at that rock, or we’ll keep going until that bench. I started bargaining with myself. It felt like I was at war or training for one. But finally, in the most underwhelming way, we turned around.

Mile 11: Now with mother nature blowing in the direction I was running, I got faster. But my wet legs and feet started hurting like hell. I decided to not focus on the pain and keep going, because I wasn’t tired, just in pain. It dawned on me that I have 2 miles left, which isn’t that bad. This was the most painful part of the race.

Mile 12: With 1 mile left, there’s not much to lose. I upped the pace a bit. It hurt, but I could see the park. I saw a girl pushing too, so I followed her. The route went uphill, which is the last thing you want when you’re ending a race. I kept thinking of stopping, but didn’t.

Mile 13: I saw the finish line and thought it’d be so lame to finish the race walking, so I sprinted for the last 100 meters.

2:28. I got a watermelon soda when I left, which was the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Then my mom and I got an Uncle Benny’s bagel which was the second best thing I’ve ever tasted.