So this weekend, I ran the 2016 Bay to Breakers. At 1:33:04, my pace was a far, FAR cry from
my most recent race, but whatever. It's been a looong 6 years littered with multiple false starts (and injuries - don't forget the injuries), but I'm back.
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| My stats for the race. Everything kind of sucks, but at least I "placed" within the upper 50th percentile. |
I've wanted to run BTB after reading about it on a running friend's blog a number of years ago. It seemed like a fun, slightly off-kilter race, a longer version of a fun run. I won't belabor the point about how zany the race is, as a cursory google search will yield enough reports. Personally, I did see some completely unexpected things, such as a group of pirates cheering from a rooftop and stormtroopers working out on ellipticals (!). There was also a fair amount of nudity that I was able to snap pictures of... pictures that I won't post here out of good taste and fear of prosecution.
Not to make excuses for my deplorable finish, but my goal wasn't really to finish fast. It was to finish, period. The BTB was a "proof-of-concept" that I can still run long(ish). Now it's time to step up my game and train to run fast(er). Next up, a half.
Not to make any excuses for a future deplorable finish either, but I think I may have injured myself a bit during this race. It feels like someone is stabbing the side of my left ankle whenever I put weight on that foot. I honestly don't think it's anything serious - probably just tendinitis from trying to finish strong while running on the sloped portion of the road - but we'll see. Hopefully I haven't inadvertently destroyed my chances of running 26.2 again at some point.
Provided that my foot pain isn't anything more serious like a stress fracture, my next race report will be about a half. We'll see.
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| At the starting line. The race runs from east to west, so I was staring straight into the sun when I snapped this selfie. |
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| That's what I was looking at. |
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| There's something odd about this picture... can you find what it is? |
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| My neighbor showed up to run. |
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| At the finish line. I'm not really smiling, I'm just breathing hard. Note the alar flaring. |
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| Race bib and finisher's medal. |
