Marathon #2 – San Francisco, California – July 31, 2005
“I knew it was only a matter of time.”
This was Jenny’s response when I told her that I had signed up for the San Francisco Marathon to be held July 2005 – despite my repeated insistence that the Chicago Marathon the previous fall had been a one-time, Check-It-Off-The-Bucket-List experience.
Wise woman that she is, Jenny could see that running in general, and marathons in particular, had gotten into my blood.
I had thought that I would get my “marathon fix” when our family ran the Oklahoma City Marathon as a relay team in April 2005, but the experience only stoked my desire to run another solo 26.2.
So, after returning home from OKC, I started casually searching to see whether there were any marathons for which I could register.
Knowing that our family would be traveling in July to Sacramento for my cousin Kara’s wedding, my search began with the northern California area. As fortune would have it, the San Francisco Marathon was scheduled for July 31, the day after Kara’s wedding.
This seemed to be more than “coincidence” to me, as Kara’s experience running a marathon was one of the early seeds that had been planted in my mind about wanting to “run a marathon some day”.
Before I knew it, I was clicking the “Register Now” button on the race website and was signed up.
“Why don’t we run it together?”
Jenny’s secondary response, which caught me off guard, was a pleasant surprise.
“That would be awesome … as long as you’re willing to run slowly enough for me to keep up with you,” I replied, with a mixture of excitement and awareness of the disparity between our running abilities.
“No time goals. Let’s just run it together and have a good time.”
So we made arrangements for our kids to stay with family members after the wedding dance, found a (relatively) cheap hotel near the Start line in San Francisco, and Jenny registered for the race.
We were committed.
Given the fact that the marathon would be at the end of July, Jenny and I would be training through the heat of the summer. This prompted me to make some tweaks to how I had trained for Chicago the previous fall.
For one thing, I decided to go for my long Sunday runs much earlier, often getting up at 3:00am so as to avoid the summer heat.
Additionally, after learning the importance of hydration during these long runs, I decided to alter my running route. As a result, rather than running north (away from town) as I had done while training for Chicago, I started running south (toward town) so that I could buy bottled water at the 24-hour convenience stores along the way.
This change in route led to some interesting and unexpected interactions as I ran through the darkened streets of Topeka on those Sunday mornings, as I would often encounter an interesting host of characters on the sidewalks.
Perhaps it was foolish of me, but I never once felt in danger, mostly because I was just a guy out running with a couple of bucks in his pocket. I always made an effort to look people directly in the eye while saying “Good morning”, and the vast majority of the time they were friendly and pleasant in return.
I have many vivid memories from those early morning Sunday runs through the (mostly) empty streets of Topeka, and saw many beautiful sunrises reflecting off the Kaw River while crossing the Topeka Boulevard bridge.
We arrived in California a few days before the wedding so as to be able to take in some of the sights. We toured the California State Capitol building in Sacramento (we have always made a point to visit state capitol buildings whenever possible), admired the beauty of the Yosemite Valley, and visited San Francisco in order to pick up our race packets. It was a whirlwind three days of activity.
As we were preparing to leave San Francisco, I happened to casually mention to the parking garage attendant that we were heading out to Sacramento for my cousin’s wedding rehearsal dinner.
“You’ve got 13 minutes to beat the Friday traffic.”
He said this with the certainty of a meteorologist looking at the radar and seeing a hurricane bearing down on a coastal town. We heeded his stern warning, ran through the parking garage to the car, threw our stuff in the trunk, and headed out.
The early winds of the Traffic Hurricane had begun to form on the Bay Bridge, and after a few minutes of stop-and-go traffic, we were just barely able to get out of Frisco before it struck with full force. We made it back to Sacramento in ample time to get cleaned up and enjoy the Happy Hour at the hotel.
As we were leaving for the rehearsal dinner, Jenny noticed that the passenger side of the rental car had a noticeable dent. While certainly a curveball, there was one bit of good fortune. For the only time in my life, I had used the valet parking at the hotel – only because it was mandatory. We were absolutely certain that the dent had to have occurred while it was being parked by the hotel staff.
So as the kids headed off to the rehearsal dinner with their aunts and uncles, Jenny and I stayed back to discuss the situation with hotel management.
Much to their credit, the hotel took responsibility for the dent, and after numerous calls to the rental car company and the hotel’s insurance company, the issue was resolved.
Kara and Pete’s wedding the next day was a beautiful ceremony, and Jenny and I decided to stay for the wedding dance as long as we could before driving over to San Francisco for the marathon the next morning.
Among the many memories from the dance, two stand out in particular.
First of all, my then-71 year old dad Charles Sodergren took to the dance floor to show off his “unique” dance moves, and he was suddenly and spontaneously surrounded by the entire wedding party as he led us in a group “interpretive” dance. It was an unforgettable moment for all who were there (though many of us have tried to forget it!)
Another indelible memory comes from an encounter that Jenny and I had while making idle conversation with an elderly woman at the dance.
“We will be leaving soon because we are running a race in San Francisco tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, my son runs the Bay to Breakers in San Francisco every year. What race are you running tomorrow morning?”
“The San Francisco Marathon.”
“Oh … Just a marathon”, she sniffed with an air of disdain.
The Bay to Breakers, from what I’ve heard, is basically a glorified parade held in San Francisco where many participants wear costumes, and some people happen to run the approximately 7.5 miles.
Before you call me a “running snob”, I have always respectfully disagreed when people have said that they run “just” 5K’s, or “just” a mile. If you go out and run, in my mind you are a runner.
Don’t get me wrong, the Bay to Breakers sounds like a total blast, and we would like to participate in it some year.
But … “JUST a marathon”?!?
Jenny and I gave each other a knowing look with the unspoken understanding not to worry about the woman’s obvious lack of knowledge that a marathon is 26.2 miles.
Since that day, it has been an inside joke, and we have made frequent references to running “just” a marathon. Pardon the pun, but we have gotten a lot of mileage out of it!
After sharing our goodbyes with the bride and groom, and parceling out our kids among their aunts and uncles, Jenny and I left the wedding dance around 9:30 for the roughly 2-hour drive to San Francisco.
Since the race started the next morning at 7:00am, we were hopeful to get to bed around midnight in order to get about 6 hours of sleep before the race. It had been a very busy three days, and we were certain that our fatigue would help us fall asleep.
We had chosen our hotel primarily because of its relative low cost. It was definitely “unique”, with a spiral staircase to our very small room, but it would do. Plus, its proximity (walking distance) to the race start line was a bonus.
As soon as our heads hit the pillow, we discovered something else about our hotel’s location – proximity to a fire station!
Within minutes, we heard the first of many sirens emanating from the firehouse just down the block. We laughed after the first siren, thinking that it would be a rare occurrence.
After all, how many fire calls could there be in downtown San Francisco on a Saturday night?
As it turned out, apparently about one every hour, which would give us just enough time to fall soundly asleep before being awakened by the next. If I were to guess, we probably got about a total of three hours of sleep before the 6am alarm to get dressed and head over to the race.
It was a surreal feeling walking through the mostly desolate streets of San Francisco on a Sunday morning, accompanied only by our fellow runners.
After the hubbub of the previous days, and the noisy night we had just experienced, it was quite peaceful.
We took our place toward the middle of the pack of 15,000 runners near Justin Herman Plaza, and before we knew it, we were running along The Embarcadero. The combination of darkness and, yes, fog was a bit disorienting at first (I think we were still half asleep), but in many ways it made the miles seem to fly by.
A few miles into the race, we heard a voice behind us say, “Jenny & Steve … Sole Mates!”
As we turned around to see who was reading the backs of our shirts, we saw two shirtless guys with long hair and beards who were running barefoot – I’m not making this up!
These guys were straight out of central casting, and we struck up a conversation with our new friends for the next several miles.
Adding to the surreal feeling of the moment, the Barefoot Hippies started telling every “… walks into a bar …” joke you could possibly imagine.
“A giraffe walks into a bar and says, ‘The highballs are on me, fellas.’ ”
The entertainment, darkness, and fog made us oblivious to the miles, and soon we were about to run across the Golden Gate Bridge. Though the visibility was still fairly limited, it truly added to the experience to run across the bridge through the damp fog.
After crossing the bridge, we took a small loop through a parking lot and made the return trip back across the bridge toward the city.
By the time we reached the halfway point in Golden Gate Park, the sun had begun to peek through the fog, and the temperatures began to warm.
After about 5 miles in the park, we then ran through the Haight-Ashbury District, the birthplace of the 1960’s counterculture movement.
Soon we were in the portion of the course where we were running on some of the city’s famed hills.
The hills began to take their toll, and Jenny’s foot was starting to hurt. Whenever I would suggest to her that we could walk for a while, she would insist that we press on, but I could tell that her foot was quite painful.
I will never forget a time when we turned a particular corner, only to see an uphill that looked like a mountain. After looking at each other and sharing an unspoken expletive, we were relieved to see that our fellow runners were turning just two blocks ahead – we wouldn’t have to run up the entire mountain!
After running in “survival mode” through the brutal hills, we finally could see PacBell (now AT&T) Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants. Just past the 25 Mile mark, we ran along McCovey Cove, the unofficial name of a section of San Francisco Bay beyond the right field wall of the park, and is named after famed Giants first baseman Willie McCovey.
We had about another mile along The Embarcadero to the finish, where we could now see the Bay Bridge that had been obscured by the darkness and fog nearly 4 ½ hours earlier.
We clenched hands and raised them in triumph as we crossed the Finish line.
We had done it.
Together.