(Fellow Marathon Runner Mary Tweets to the Rain Gods)
Running Log – Summary
- Days to Marathon: 139
- Training Week: 7 (Mar 7 – Mar 13)
- Day: Mon, Mar 8th
- Distance: 4.1 miles
- Total Time: 50 minutes (includes stretching and breaks)
- Pace: 9:01 minute miles
Today was yet another record LOW turnout at the San Francisco Marathon Training Program’s Monday Run at Sidney Walton Park. It had been raining on and off throughout the day, prompting fellow SFM runner Mary to tweet to the Rain Gods warning them to stop showering down on us.
As is the protocol, on rainy days the group assembles outside the Safeway across from Sidney Walton Park. When I got there today, I saw just about 15 or so other runners. Since it was a cold rainy day and we did not have that many runners, Melanie, our Monday Training Coach, told us to run for 20 minutes along the Embarcadero towards Fisherman’s Wharf, then turn and come back to the home base, which was the Safeway outside Sidney Walton Park. She also told us to not undertake the Hill at the end of the run out, in case we reached it before the 20 minutes one-way were up.
Running Log – Out towards Fisherman’s Whard and Back
I joined Tom, Steve, Luis, Shera and couple of the other elite runners as we made our way to the Embarcadero Drive at the Ferry Building. Once we reached the Ferry building, Tom, Steve and Shera broke away leaving just Luis and me. So Luis and I ran together for the rest of the run.
Our run out towards Fisherman’s Wharf was somewhat slow. I was still a little tired from the Saturday LSD Run. Luis said he was tired from the Concert he had attended on Saturday night where he danced for 4 hours and took down 3 beers ! We talked about moving to America, work and a bunch of other stuff.
Just before the 20 minute mark we reached the infamous Hill leading into the Marina Greens. Luis and I both looked at each other for a few seconds, because neither of us wanted to make the decision on whether to go for the hill “all in”, or turn back as Melanie had instructed us to do. So I took the middle ground and asked Luis if we should run mid-way up the hill and then turn back. He agreed and that’s what we did.
After we turned around, we did some stretches at the foot of the hill. While we were doing that, we looked over into the Bay at the beautiful Alcatraz Island. Luis was saying how near to the city it appeared to be. No doubt the inmates were not Angels by any means, but to me, it seemed really ironic that the island housed prisoners who were probably looking at the beautiful City of San Francisco from their cells everyday and yearning to get out and be here instead of being locked up in a cold dingy cell on an island.
Alcatraz Island (photo credit dhilung @ flickr.com)
On our way back, Luis and I ran into Bianca and Warren, who were running at a very steady fast pace. Our Run back to Home Base was much faster, with an average pace hovering around 8:30. Once we reached the home base, I checked my Garmin GPS watch and it said that our average pace for the entire stretch out and back, covering 4.1 miles, was 9:01.
Back at the Home Base
Back at Safeway we assembled under the sidewalk and started our stretching session. Luis noticed that I had scratched my left calf so much that it had started to bleed. So I hurried home and cleaned the scratch and put some ice on it.
