This weekend 2 favorites of mine converged – running and baseball = The Giant Race. Here’s how the weekend went.

Friday

ART
I visited my chiro for an ART session. If you’ve ever had an ART session, you know that they are very intense, but fairy short, usually 15 minutes or so. This particular session was at least 45 minutes, if not longer. Dr. Eva started to work on my right hamstring, but it was pretty tight and almost sore to the touch. She had to massage it for a while to loosen it up before she could really get started with the ART. It was so intense that I broke out in a sweat.

Next she worked on my piriformis, which actually wasn’t too bad at all. She did hit a couple of tight spots but it was more relieving than anything else. She had me stand up to do a forward fold and could tell that something was still pulling on my right side so she decided to work on my upper calf. I didn’t think I was having any calf issues but once she started working on it, I realized it was pretty tight too. Funny how the chiros can always find the spots that torture you the most. I left the feeling a little abused but overall, much better.

Orange Friday
The game the night before the race is called “Runner’s Night”. We had the opportunity to buy game tickets, which are usually in the upper deck, in the worst area of the park. Having experienced this last year, Karin and I ditched those tickets and sat in our friend’s Club Level seats.

We had a little bit of an adventure getting into the park, but once we did we spent most of the time combing the club level for “carb-loading” food. I had my usual baked potato (with pulled pork, grilled corn, broccoli, mushrooms, bacon bits, salsa, etc). But you can’t be in the Club Level and not have dessert. So we decided to split some gelato and strawberry shortcake – yum!

Personally, I wish Runners Night was held the game after the race. I had to leave the game early so that I could get a full night’s sleep and be well rested for race day. I was home and in bed by 11 pm but found myself wide-awake at 2:30 am. I was paranoid that I wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep and started having all kinds of doubts float through my mind. I started to feel bruising from my ART session and seriously considered skipping the race and just being a spectator. But I paid a lot of money for this race (it’s quite pricey for a half) and didn’t want to let it go to waste.

Saturday

Pre-Race
I was up at 5:30 am and realized I didn’t have anything to eat for breakfast. I barely had enough cereal to fill a bowl. I had meant to make some oatmeal the night before but forgot to. I found one last English muffin so I threw it in my bag, along with a Gatorade and was out the door by 6 am. Although the race didn’t start till 8 am, I wanted to make sure I got parking in Lot A (closest to the Start Line and ballpark).

I sat in my car for about 45 minutes eating my breakfast. I still wasn’t feeling very motivated until PunkRockRunner reminded me that he was racing an Ironman on Sunday. That was enough to get me over my pity party and I headed over to the start area where I met up with Courtney, Aron and Audrey…

…and my friend Mark.

I lined up in the very crowded starting corrals with Audrey, eating a GU right before the race started.

Race

The GU was a nice pick-me-up; once I started running, I felt quite energized. I needed it too because the first few miles were spent weaving through people. I expected this for the first couple miles because the group I was assigned to was “Group B” which was for 9:00+ min/milers and walkers. But at Mile 3 I was still weaving through walkers.

Though the weather conditions were perfect – foggy and breezy, I still double-fisted through every aid station because I wasn’t sure where or how many they were. Turns out, there were 4, which you hit twice on the out-and-back course. I managed to run up most of the Fort Mason hill and took another GU during Mile 4.

I was cruising down along the waterfront at the Marina, enjoying my playlist when I came upon a large group that was causing a bit of a commotion. I looked up and saw Brian Wilson, All-Star closer for the SF Giants! I whipped out my phone from my belt and threw to the first guy I saw and ran up to him to take a photo.

Apparently he was there for quite a while high-fiving and taking photos with runners. How awesome was it to have a Giant out on the course supporting runners of their own race?! I was stoked and had a permanent smile on my face for the rest of the race!

I continued onto Crissy Field still with a huge grin on my face. The course looped at Mile 7, closest to the GGB. See how foggy it was? You can’t even see the span of the GGB.

{thanks Mark for the photo}

On the way back I started to get tired and this time walked back up the Fort Mason Hill while eating my last GU. One way or the other this darn hill owns me. Actually everyone around me was walking up it as well, until a girl came on by and started cheering us on and telling us to keep going. It was a nice little pick-me-up so I picked up the pace and thanked her for the motivation. We kept passing it each for the last 5K.

Ideally, this would have been a nice race to PR at because the course was mostly flat and the weather conditions were ideal. But after the Brian Wilson encounter where I stopped for a few minutes, I kinda gave up on that idea. But at Mile 11 I ran into Mark. I told him that if I pushed hard I could be close to a PR so he told me that we should at least try.

Unfortunately, the last few miles were spent weaving around the 10K walkers. I understand in a race like this the participants are likely to be more fans of the team than fans of running, but I wished they knew a little more about race etiquette – like how about moving to the side and not walking 10-people wide? Especially if you have strollers. I was seriously hating the strollers.

I crossed the Finish line at 2:15:59, missing a PR by 55 seconds. Had I not stopped for the photo op, I would have had it, but I don’t regret it. Meeting Brian Wilson was well worth a PR. I would do it again in a heartbeat! Best race photo ever!

Post-Race

Up until this point, the race experience was great. Then we got to the Finish Line where I could barely cross it because it was so backed up. It was horrible. HORRIBLE! The same thing happened last year and I was hoping they would have fixed this, but they didn’t. (Check out Aron and Courtney’s race reports for photos of the ugly mess.)

I hopped over the rope just so I could stretch and walk around to bring my heart down. The ushers yelled at me at get back over. I told them that this is how people get injured. I had to push my way to a corner where there was a little room for me to circle around and do a little stretching.

The line slowly moved forward where we were handed bottled water and medals. We crossed by home plate but there was no photo op this year. I eventually met up with Audrey…

…and had to climb the stairs (more cruelty) to get to the bobble head line. If you’ve been to the park, here’s some context to what it was like:

- Finish Line was in front of Left Field bleachers
- Got smushed walking down the 3B line to home plate
- Followed the line along the 1B side and climbed the stairs to the main level along Right Field

It was packed and slow moving. My legs had already stiffened up on me. We proceeded on the Promenade Level back towards the home plate area where we were handed a bag with the typical race expo coupons and flyers.

The line continued along the Promenade Level (so we’re circling back along the 3B line towards Center Field. Along the way we were given bagels, bananas and Safeway shopping bags. That was cool.

Finally, by 1B we picked up our Timmy Lincecum bobble heads, then had to continue on to get our Nike Dri Fit shirts. I actually really like the shirt – I think it’ll still chafe me, but at least it’s much better than last year’s shirt. And to their credit, they didn’t run out like last year.

After getting my shirt and bobble head, I was ready leave. Instead, we were forced to pass by the “expo booths” all the way to Center Field. It was chaotic. The ushers were upset and yelling, “This is so unorganized!” Yes, it was. I wasn’t happy that we were forced to walk through it and not have the option to just leave.

We finally made it to the Marina Gate where we had to walk down the stairs (even more cruelty).

Courtney had patiently waited for Audrey and I. We headed to lunch at Momo’s where I had my traditional burger and fries. I sometimes think the only reason I run races is for the fries, since I only allow myself to eat them after a race.

All in all, there were some nice things that were improved from last year:

- Not running out of shirt sizes
- Giving us a real bobble head and not a mini Lou Seal one
- Mailing us our race bibs and chips
- Parking in Lot A

I still think they need to fix the Finish Line debacle, the whole “forced expo” exit and walkers merging with runners. But overall, it was a fun experience (mostly because of the Brian Wilson sighting) and I think we got a new Giant fan out of it!

Half-Marathon #14 is in the books!

Next up is the Moo Cow Half on Sept 18th!

I’ve been averaging going to 2 ball games every home stand this season. Two games in one weekend is pretty exhausting; adding in a half-marathon made it a pretty full weekend.

Friday Night Game
This was the inaugural year of the Giant Race, the first half-marathon hosted by the Giants. I registered for the race back in February at Fan Fest, and registration included a ticket to the game the night before the race. Since we also planned to go to the game after the race, it made sense to spend the night in the City. We stayed at the race-designated hotel which is a nice walk from the park. If you’re familiar with San Francisco you’ll know that summers in the City are usually cold; our summers usually come around in October. So when I saw how warm it was during the walk to the park, I knew we were in for a hot race day.

When we got to the ballpark, we went to the expo that was held in the parking lot behind the park.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the bib pick-up process was organized. The expo wasn’t too bad either; picked up some free samples, found out about new upcoming races and got some snacks too.

Figuring out what ballpark food to eat for a pre-race meal was a bit of a challenge. I had my heart set on getting my macho nachos, aka the jerk chicken nachos at the Orlando Cepeda BBQ stand. Unfortunately, the runners were seated in the upper deck and the View section stand didn’t have the nachos I wanted. The Tres Agave nachos were there, but those are nasty (I’m sure they’re better in the restaurant, but the ballpark version sucks). After walking up and down the concourse, I settled on the Cha-Cha bowl – Caribbean rice, beans, chicken and vegetables.

We were seated in the very top corner of the park. I’m not an upper deck kinda girl and I felt so removed from the game. I mean, we couldn’t even see the scoreboard. At least we had a nice view of the 3rd base line and the G’s ended up winning the game.

At 10 pm it was a warm walk back to the hotel (again, very unlike San Francisco summers).

Race Day
The next morning, we planned to take the complimentary shuttle to the park. We waited for it for about 15 minutes and when it finally showed up, it turned out to be a small van. It would take several trips to get everyone who was already there waiting to the park, so we ended up walking. The fact that I didn’t need a jacket at 7 am pretty much told the story of how the day would be.

We stopped at McCovey Cove to take a few photos:

Then headed to bag check where we met up with Ron (how did we not get a photo together?).

There were about 3700 participates for both the half and 5K. Unfortunately, other than the pace groups, there wasn’t really organization to the start. We pushed our way up to the 2:00 pace group that Ron and Karin (so happy I finally got to meet her in person…how did we not get any photos together either?!) planned to run with.

Matt Cain (of the high-knee socks look) was there to kick off the race. I can’t remember what he said, but I do know that Jeremy Affeldt was way more inspiring at last year’s 5K.

Before I knew it, it was time to go. We said goodbye to Ron and Karin, then Missy and I waited for the 2:20 pace group.

Miles 1-4
Starting out I felt great. Since the race started behind the park, there was a lot of space so people weren’t crowding into each other; there wasn’t any dodging and weaving. The area behind the park is dry and industrial with a few new buildings. Not a lot of action going on, but Cheer SF was there to keep things spirited (random thought: how exactly does one become a member of Cheer SF?), along with a gospel choir.

At Mile 2 we passed the ballpark and I was grateful for the shade. I took my first sip of Ultima, the drink I had in my belt. It was warm and gross. I shouldn’t even have bothered to use the belt because I didn’t use it again for the rest of the race.

As we continued to run along the Embarcadero, I realized how much lack of shade there is in this area. What little shade there was came from the shadows of the buildings. The next aid station was around Mile 4. It was so hot, I knew I’d be stopping at every one. My ritual became, drink 1 cup of Powerade, drink 1 cup of water, pour 1 cup of water all over me.

Miles 5-8
We hit the first hill at Mile 5 – Fort Mason.

I’ve run this hill many times before and always kicks my ass – every single time. I tried to run it, made it half way, then walked the rest because I felt like I was having a coronary. The rest of the Fort Mason area was hills, then it flattened out for a bit while we ran back along the Embarcadero (Fisherman’s Wharf).

By this time I was so, so hot. There was an aid station right before the ramp up to the North Beach Hill. I didn’t want to cramp up so I drank a lot of fluids there. But I think I drank too much because all of a sudden I got really queasy. Somewhere in North Beach, around Mile 8, I puked. I usually have a stomach made of steel and have never puked while running. Ever. Its pretty disgusting.

Despite that puking thing, North Beach wasn’t that bad. Everyone at the expo said that North Beach was the “big hill”, but I found it much more tolerable than Fort Mason. Maybe because it was more gradual and not straight up.

Mile 9
Mile 9 – downhill on Broadway. I loved it – scummy stripper clubs and all. I rocked out to 50 Cent and thought the worst was over; it would be smooth sailing from there on out.

Miles 10-13
Mile 10-13 was back tracking along the Embarcadero back to the ballpark. Sort of. I was cruising along and got so excited when the ballpark came into view. I kept thinking, “its almost over!” But then I got to there and realized it was only Mile 10.5.

We had to run through the back of the park again. I swear, it was like a death march. Hot and lifeless. Passing the Lefty O’Doul Bridge where the Finisher’s chute started and seeing the runners heading into the chute when I still had 2 miles left just about killed me.

Those last 2 miles were tortuous. Every time I made a turn I expected to see the course turn back towards the park but it didn’t. It was like last years Seattle RnR all over again. The worst was at Mile 12. It appeared that’s where you turned to head back toward the park, but instead, there was another loop in the other direction. I saw Missy here; we just looked at each other and shook our heads. It was about this time that I sent Ron a text that said, “I am so miserable.”

I am so grateful for the lady who tapped me on the shoulder as I walked and encouraged me to get going again. “Just one foot in front of the other” she said. As I picked up the pace I ran into a couple of twenty-something girls. One of the girls yelled, “Dammit, I was doing so well until Mile 10!” I started laughing and joined up with them for a bit.

When I finally got to the Finisher’s chute (which ran down the boardwalk behind the park) I met up with Missy and we entered the park at Triples Alley (right center field). We ran along the warning track and crossed the Finish Line together in left field.

As soon as we crossed the Finish Line, we came to a dead stop and had to stand in a long line to wait to get our medals (btw – who’s bright idea was it to have a blue medal for the Giants Race?!) and have our photo taken at home plate. There was no space to walk around to cool down. As we made our way down the line I started to cramp up and feel quesy again. So as soon as I took my photo, I walked straight to the medical tent (in the opponents dugout).

When I felt normal again we made our way back to the expo tent to pick up our race shirt. Did they really need to put “10″ on the back? Every time I look at it I think of Travis Ishikawa (and not in a good way).

Post Race
We had to check out of the hotel by 1 pm so we raced back, cleaned up and checked. Since the game didn’t start until 6 pm we had 5 hours to kill. We decided to head to the Public House, the restaurant/bar at the park.

The Giants had opened the park for fans to watch the World Cup for free on the HD scoreboard. They thought they’d get a couple thousand fans but instead 20K people showed up which made the Public House a crazy mess. They ran out of food and didn’t start serving again until 3 pm. Luckily there’s free wi-fi at the ballpark and we were able to keep ourselves occupied while starved, waiting for the kitchen to open again. The good folks there knew we waited a long time so they served us first. I’m not ashamed to admit that I pigged out on burgers, fries, mac and cheese and chocolate salt ice cream.

We ended the epic weekend in the bleachers, watching the Giants beat the A’s during another warm night in City.

For a first time race it went a lot better than I expected and I have to give mad props to whoever manages the @SFGiants Twitter account. They answered all of my race questions. With the tens of thousands of followers they have, I really appreciated the prompt responses!

Now that a little time has passed, I can say that despite the heat, the puking, and the death march, it was fun. I’ll definitely participate in this race again — at the very least the 5K.

The next race I’m registered for is the San Francisco Marathon 1st Half next month…thank goodness it starts at 5 am!

Yesterday marked the official start of the 2010 baseball season!

I woke up at 5 am so I can get a 10-miler in before meeting Alexandra to catch the train up to the City. But all I heard was heavy rain so I went back to sleep. I woke up again at 6:30 am to find that it had cleared up. Guess I could have gotten that run in – oh well, that’s what I’ll be doing today. In a way, it worked out for the best – I can burn off the anticipated calories that will be consumed at Superbowl festivities today!

Photo from Sprinkles Cupcakes

The weather was cloudy with scattered showers, but it didn’t keep G’s fans away. It wasn’t as crowded as I remembered it being last year, but there were still a lot of people.

When we got there, everything felt chaotic. There were massive lines with bad signage so you didn’t know what the lines were for. We decided to walk the entire park to assess the situation and see what was going on. Thankfully, we also had our Twitter feed to follow so we could read what was going on at different stations.

We ended up standing in the photo line. We thought we were going to get to take pictures with Buster Posey, Alex Hinshaw and someone else who I can’t remember, but they stations rotated at the top of the hour. At first we were annoyed to miss them, but I was ecstatic to find out they were replaced by Kruk and Kuip! On the train ride up I had told Alexandra that I was most hoping to see them. When we finally got to the front of the line, we found out that they had a professional photographer to take the photos and then we had to BUY them! Wasn’t Fanfest supposed to be FREE?!? It was VERY misleading and should have been advertised at the END of the line so we could have decided if we wanted to waste an hourstanding in line for a photo that we’d have to pay for. Luckily, it was Kruk and Kuip or I would have gone…nuts (keeping it PG). Alexandr and I quickly came up with a plan – we switched cameras, and as the professional photographer took the photos, we also took ones, using each others’ camera.

As I was finishing up, I shook Kruk and Kuip’s hands and thought – I need to make this moment last as long as I can…

Me: Thank you! See you guys at Spring Training!
Kruk: When are you going?
Me: The first and 3rd weekends.
Kruk: Hey, I’m going the weekend of the 19th!
Me: See you at Don’s and Charlie’s!

I left feeling go giddy – my day was complete! Nothing else could top that! Well I was wrong…

We made our way to the Club Level to meet up with the rest of our Giants Twitter friends. It was the end of the Q&A session. For the little I heard of it, I have now decided that Jeremy Affeldt is my favorite current Giant. He is soooo funny – totally not a dud! Forget the “Life of Brian” tv show – get Affeldt his own show – STAT!

For my second favorite experience of the day, we got to go on a secret tour in the park, made available only to people who follow @SFGTweetup on Twitter. This is an account that one of my Twitter friends created last summer when she organized a tweet-up at a game (unfortunately I was out of town and couldn’t make it). The account quickly grew in followers and us originals followers got worried that there’d be too many people. I guess some people from the Giants followed our Twitter conversation and emailed Lauren to tell her that she could be sure the “OG Tweeps” got in.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the tour. I had already been on the ballpark tour a couple of years ago and thought I saw everything there was to see. Wrong! The tour was so much fun! They took us through the business offices and then to the broadcast booths where we got to see the Control Room where they operated the scoreboard and the broadcast booths – where Kruk and Kuip call the games, as well as where Renel (ballpark announcer) sits. At one point I even told the tour guide, “This is better than Cooperstown!” – which I think it was.

After the tour we made our way down to one of the autograph lines where we again missed Buster Posey, but got autographs from Sergio Romo and Madison Baumgartner. I had them sign my 2010 baseball.

Next we headed to the Field Club area where we got to walk around the Clubhouse and then head up to the dugout. It was fun to see the views of the park from there. The event was winding down so we milled around on the field and took pictures at 3rd base and on the pitchers mound. The field looks messed up because they had a motor cross event there last week.

Finally, as we were leaving, we got to meet Tom Tolbert, one of the hosts of the local sports radio station. He’s one of my favorites so that was fun!

All in all, it was a great event, one that I look forward to every year, but there a few things that could have been organized much more efficiently to make it a better experience for the fans:

1. Have signage at the END of the long lines so people know what the heck they are standing in line for. Having at the front is fine, but post it at the end too.

2. While it was nice to see a posted schedule of the radio broadcast, it would also be more efficient to post a schedule of what players are going to be at what stations and what time the rotations are scheduled for. And make announcements in the park when rotations happen.

3. Have a map of where the exhibitors are located too.

4. At the photo line, set the expectation upfront that there will be a professional photographer there and you need to BUY the photo.

Overall, it was much better than what I expected and I loved meeting up with my Twitter friends. I am so ready for Spring Training – 28 days till Scottsdale!

PS The Giant Race

As I walked through the Club Level, I came a little table where they were advertising “The Giant Race” – Last year they just had the Plate-to-Plate 5K (which I ran) but this year, they’ve added a Half Marathon! Here’s the deets:

* Saturday, June 12th
* The course will take you along the Embarcadero, through Fisherman’s Wharf, etc. Its also the first race to go through North Beach (gulp!).
* All runners will finish by crossing home plate in AT&T Park
* If you register early you will get a ticket to the Friday night game vs the Oakland A’s
* Also, if you register this week, use the discount code of GIANTS and get $10 off the registration fee

Register at www.thegiantrace.com

I’ve already registered – who’s running with me?!