RUNNING NEVER GETS EASIER; YOU JUST GET STRONGER.
I didn’t grow up running, and didn’t start really until I was in my mid-twenties. But one day I decided I’d start running, and after hours and hours and miles and miles of training, I’ve finally become a runner. I sign up for races from time to time, to keep myself running because I certainly get burned out.
Most recently I ran the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco and absolutely loved it. It’s a huge race and I’ve been trying to get into it for years. It’s one of the few races with a lottery entry that’s quite difficult to win (not unlike the NYC marathon), and this year I again entered the lottery. I didn’t get in. However, I have a friend with a friend that works at Nike and was lucky enough to get a spot through her. Pays to have friends in high places!
This was such a fun race with an awesome course and so easy for me because I could walk to the start from my apartment and walk home from the finish. How perfect!
The race started in Union Square, ran across the middle of the City, through the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park, winding its way north of the park, through the Richmond, past Sea Cliff and into the Presidio. Running north through the Presidio, there is one final brutal hill that you climb, which winds its way along the north side of the Presidio with amazing views of the Marin headlands, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marina, and then the blissful downhill into the Marina, along Chrissy Field and finally finishing on the Marina green.
It was definitely a tough course – there were more than a few hills and some of them pretty tough, but running through San Francisco, through the streets that are usually filled with traffic and people and cars, was really something special.
There were more than 25,000 runners in the race – almost all women. It’s a women’s race, but is open up to guys too, and while there weren’t too many of them, the guys were having a great time.
One thing they did this year that I think is different from the past is that instead of having a big race expo the day before the race, Nike turned its retail stores into what would normally be the expo. Typically, a runner will pick up her race bib and race goodies the couple of days before the race at a location that has tons of vendors set up in a big expo. This year, Nike had a race packet pick up set up at the Westin in Union Square and then rather than vendors set up selling race and running goodies, they funneled the racers into their Union Square Nike store where you could buy Nike goods branded with the race. I think this is brilliant on the part of Nike, but I have to say I missed the expo part of the race weekend. I really love wandering through the rows and rows of running vendors, selling all sorts of goodies that I probably don’t need but that I love to buy. Where were the shirts that say “I run for cupcakes”?! While perhaps not the most serious of running gear, those are the goodies I like to peruse at the expos. C’est la vie – I still bought a running tank from Nike, which proves their point I suppose.
Now one of the real reasons the ladies love to sign up for this race is for the goodies. Most importantly, the race medal. Most races give you a finisher’s medal as you cross the finish line, but in the Nike Women’s Half Marathon, you get a Tiffany & Co. necklace as a finisher’s medal.
But the race had other goodies too! The racer’s shirts were really great Nike tanks and they handed out fun pink water bottles at the finish line.
It was a very well organized race and, despite the huge number of runners, it didn’t feel crowded or chaotic. Runners were organized into different starting corrals based on estimated finish times, and that made the very early morning start run smoothly. Also, all of these race photos were available for free download from Nike’s website. This is such a lovely additional gift – normally race photographers charge far too much for downloading even one or two photos.
Half marathons are a great race length and definitely manageable in a way that a full marathon isn’t. While you definitely have to train for a half, you don’t have to sacrifice every weekend to a run that will take you hours to finish and leave you feeling terrible for the rest of the day. It also doesn’t hurt that the mid-week runs are a much more manageable 3-5 miles rather than the 8-10 miles you’d have to log every other day before or after a long workday while training for a full marathon.
And this race in particular would be the perfect race to run with friends. I saw so many groups of women who were old friends, mother-daughter duos, co-workers, joined together in friendship or hardship or fundraising for a worthy cause. It’s a great race full of companionship and support, laughter and love, and a tremendous feeling of being in it with 25,000 other amazingly fun [mostly] women.
I ran this race with no time goal in mind, no GPS watch on my wrist, no pacer by my side. I just ran for a beautiful course, in one of my absolute favorite cities, for the joy of being outside and enjoying a nice long run. And it was one of my favorite races in a very long time. If you’re looking for a great race to sign up for, this is definitely a recommendation.
Nike Women’s Half Marathon San Francisco
BY Jackie
LOCATION San Francisco, California
