San Francisco Marathon
July 2003
Martin Pattison

I turned up to the starting area in good time - plenty of time, or so it seemed, to walk around a bit, get something to drink immediately before the start and visit the restrooms. The first task I set myself was to get a cup of water or sports drink. I looked around but could not see any, and eventually asked, only to be told that there were no fluids available at the start. I next headed over to the portable restrooms, but the queues were incredibly long, and since they were a few hundred metres from the start area, it did not look as if I would have time to use them.

I took off my outer garments and handed them to some friends who had come to San Francisco with me but were too sensible to run the marathon. It was my first marathon and although I had only taken up running in March and had been averaging 30 miles a week, I was aiming for under 3 hours. When asked what time I would would be back at the start/finish area I replied that I expected to take 3 to 3 1/2 hours, just in case things went wrong in the last 10km. There were markers in the starting area for different paces, and I had headed to the region appropriate to a 6:40 pace and waited for the starting gun. Despite the fact that there were about 4000 runners, the start was not too crowded and it was fairly easy to run without bumping into people and after about 20 seconds I set my stopwatch as I passed the start line. The pace was quite leisurely and it seemed clear that most people in my region of the starting area should have started further back. I was happy enough to start off slowly, and gradually picked up the pace, passing lots of people to hit the first mile marker at 7:10. Just after 2 miles there were some portable restrooms, and I dived in losing just over 20 seconds. As I continued going, I was finding the pace really easy and was starting to really enjoy the race, the only discomfort being that my calf muscles were tightening up. It wasn't too long before I reached the first hill, which rises about 100m over a distance of 1km, a one in ten gradient. I maintained about the same pace as the other runners around me, but the hill did not seem very tough at all. I had been about level with a 15 year old kid for a while and was waiting (or rather hoping) for him to fall back - I was reminded of how 15 year old Danny Nunes beat me by just 4 seconds in Nite Moves and I was imagining that this was the rematch. Near the top of the hill was the 10km point and the relay exchange point and the kid pulled off to hand his bracelet to another runner. Before long, I started to pass walkers as I headed into the long descent.

The course is generally very pleasant, but the last 2 miles before the halfway point were pretty dreary and in my opinion, far from scenic. During this section, I was becoming rather concerned was that my calf muscles were really bothering my by now. I felt like stopping to stretch, but decided to wait until after I had passed through the halfway point, which I reached at 1:28:49, gliding past a half marathoner who was trying to do a final sprint to the finish, but slowing down in the process. I was feeling quite pleased with myself - I had resisted the temptation to run fast over the first half and was right on schedule to break 3 hours. So far, it had been easy and I felt as if I had plenty of energy left. I spotted a drinks station, grabbed some fluids and found something to lean against to stretch my calves. I had remembered reading somewhere that stretching in the middle of a run could help things, but it did not work in my case. As I continued running, I wondered why my calves had tightened up; it seemed odd, especially since it had started in the first few miles and I had done plenty of tempo runs at a faster pace with no problems. I was wondering if wearing different shoes had brought on the problem, but although it would be tempting to attribute the problem to using racing flats, I now realise that the only times I had tried running at marathon pace were a couple of times during the previous week when I had gone to the UCSB track - the pace had felt really unnatural, and yes, come to think of it, my calves had been tight afterwards. I timed myself between the 14 and 15 mile markers at 6:31 - still on schedule with time to spare, but there was a long climb (2 miles) through Golden Gate Park coming up. Well, even though the rest of my body was functioning perfectly happilly, my calves did not like the climb at all and I realised I was slowing a lot. It was at about mile 20 that I realised that even though there were no significant uphills left, I would not make the finish line in three hours. As I approached the 25 marker, I was reminded that there is a tradition that one should shout "God Save the King" (or Queen since 1953) when passing the 40km (24.8mi) point - the idea behind this is that originally the Olympic marathon was 40km but in the 1908 Olympics, a couple of sections were added so the competitors would start at Windsor Palace and finish in front of the royal box in the stadium. For whatever reason, possibly because this was the first course to have been accurately measured, the 1908 Olympic distance was adopted as the standard. In any case, I was starting to feel rather bad and was none too grateful to the 1908 officials whose legacy was making me run another 2195 metres - especially since I was not expecting any royals to be at the finish to present me with my finisher's medal. However, it was the equivalent of only 5 laps of a track to go - time to go all out for the finishing push...

Now, some people think that psychology has an important role in sporting performance but I had never been to sure of that. But around the corner from the 25 mile marker there was a runner who had collapsed - there were a couple of race staff with him calling for medical assistance. About this time I was feeling a bit light headed - I think this is known as "hitting the wall". I started to worry that this might happen to me and the sensible part of my brain kicked in and slowed me to a walk for the next few minutes. Of course, walking didn't make me feel any better and I just got overtaken by lots of people - though from the colour of their numbers, I could see that they were mainly half marathoners who were only running the second half of the course. After a while I managed to start back up again and picked up the case to cruise through the finish in 3:15:42.

Would I do the San Francisco marathon again? I think so. The course was nice, the weather was good (for running), there were plenty of places with fluids. The amount of elevation gain is twice that of Boston, so it is not a fast course, but the hills made it more fun (well the hills in the first half did). One of the mile markers was off, but I cannot think of any other problems with this event.

I think in future I would try to do some marathon pace runs beforehand - preferably on asphalt, in racing shoes, and in the morning. On my two brief visits to the track at UCSB, I had found it to be a strange speed to run at - slower than tempo or 5km pace, but faster than warm-up or long run pace. My muscles were just not programmed to run at that speed.