So it seems that if it isn’t one thing, then it’s another.  After fighting a bronchial infection for 6 weeks, I feel better and sign myself up for this run in San Francisco and in the same week I go out and break my right big toe.  Do you want to know how?  Ants.  Yep.  Ants!  Damn ants broke my toe!  And damn kickball too!  Seems all my foot injuries (typically toe related) revolve around kickball as well.  So on this particular occasion, I was at the kickball fields watching an earlier game when I noticed I had a shoe covered in ants.  And ants certainly aren’t a huge deal.  I’ve been bitten by many ants in my lifetime and I could be bothered less by them.  I’m not bothered after I’ve been bitten by them.  Same thing with wasp stings and spider bites.  But if I see some crawly thing on me that hasn’t bitten or stung me yet, then I seem to go all girly over it.  I freak out and try to shake it off as quick as I can, and obviously without thinking too much about it.  So with the ants crawling around my shoe, I immediately initiate kicking my foot, toe head on, into a concrete curb.  Well, I’ve kicked curbs many times in my lifetime also, to shake bugs or dirt off.  But for whatever reason on this occasion, I kicked my foot in such a way that my toe immediately felt the impact.  By the time our game started, I could barely walk on my right foot.  I kicked with my left and hobbled around.  I was still able to kick in a runner left footed which was a small victory.

Point being, I really messed up my toe this time.  A small fracture along but not on the joint.  So after plenty of consultation, and knowing I had already booked a trip to California that I couldn’t easily cancel, I basically became lazy for two weeks.  Lazy meaning no runs at all.  I even held off on walks.  The first week, my toe was purple to hell.  The second week, it hurt more but I attributed that to the healing process.  The normal healing process for a non serious fracture is 4-6 weeks.  I was trying to cut that time in half.  I had nearly talked myself into doing a small run or long walk when it started hurting so badly that I decided against it.  I guess the rest paid off.  The foot ended up giving me little problem once in San Francisco.  It was slightly uncomfortable during the race and more so immediately afterward for two days, but now it seems to have eased up completely.  One thing that my toe didn’t like however, once in San Francisco, was the steep hills… especially walking down them.  That was more problematic than I thought.  But I managed.  I figured that worst case I could tumble my way down a hill.

By the way,

I have another blog on travelpod with regards to the trip to San Francisco itself.  This blog will concentrate on the race event.  Likewise the travelpod blog references the race on this blog.  As for the race event itself… The Presidio10 is an annual event held in Presidio (the area along the south bank of the Golden Gate) with support for The Guardsmen, a group of people who help at risk city youth.  They’ve also partnered with the Ashlyn Dyer Foundation, which supports neurological research for traumatic brain injuries.  Ashlyn Dyer was an avid marathoner and a Presidio resident who was hit and killed by a hit and run driver in 2006 while running along the streets of the Presidio.  She died from severe head trauma.

Another reason this race became special on this occasion was it’s close proximity to the Boston bombing just 6 days prior.  One of the injured was a young man from the Oakland area.  By a show of hands and applause, there seemed to be a number of people at this event that were either at the Boston Marathon the weekend before, from the Bay Area or from Boston itself and happened to be in the Bay Area.  Supposedly, enrollment into this race rose dramatically after the bombing.  Runners across the world have united to run for Boston.

Registration was easy on their website.  Getting to the race wasn’t the easiest thing however.  Easy if you are in a car, but not so much using public transit, or at least using what transit I could find.  The race organizers didn’t seem to address public transportation very well.  They suggested that people use it, but they didn’t suggest how (i.e. what modes of transport to use and where they picked you up or dropped you off at).  There didn’t seem to be any shuttles either, or at least none that I could figure.  I ended up using a taxi which worked out.  It cost about $20 and dropped me off at the front which worked out too because I walked a long way afterwards looking for a bus line.

The event itself seemed set up well.  There were plenty of tents with all sorts of information, including a check

area for sweats (or anything really), just place it in a bag and label it.  They seem to put their food and drinks stands together though so that made for long lines afterwards.  The band played right in the middle which was perfect.  The race started with the 10 milers.  They went in three waves.  A few minutes later, the 10K runners left, in similar waves.  Sometime after that I think the 5K runners went.  I ran with the 10K runners.  The 10 miler looked interesting but I wasn’t sure about the hills.  I come from such a flat geographical area and hills as steep as those around San Francisco just seem to be unrelenting.

This particular race basically started with a steep hill.  About half a mile in, you had to run up to the bridge itself from sea level.  That seemed to hurt many people (at least slower people near the back).  I heard people near the end complaining about it (uphill at the beginning to get tired and then downhill at the end).  I ran up well more than half of it but by the last third or so, I slowed to a walk knowing that it was still just the beginning and I needed to be able to make the remainder 8.5K or so.

Amazingly, once up on top and heading across the bridge, it got much much easier.  There was a point in time where I felt very good about my time.  I felt like I could possibly compete for a new personal record.  Turns out I was right, but it’s obvious the starter hill and some other things played a factor into not setting a new personal record.  Obviously the hill hurt; not as bad as it could have but it did because I was slow going up it and again coming back down since the downhill was bothering my toe much more than I thought it would.

Another factor was the turnaround spot across the bridge near Vista Point.  The path turned tightly 90 degrees to the right a few times.  At the first turn was the first water station.  That was not the best place for a water station because you basically ran right into it.  Then you turned immediately again to run down some ridiculously steep stairs to cross along a very narrow passageway underneath the bridge to the other side. We ran northbound on the east sidewalk.  The run back was on the west sidewalk which were both closed to the public during the race.  But the transition between the east sidewalk to the west sidewalk was not easy.  This is another sign that this race is more meant to be for fun although still competitive.  It’s just that road runners typically aren’t used to narrow sidewalks, sharp turns and steep steps down and back up.  That certainly had an impact on final time as well.

Once up the other side, it was a partial sprint back across.  I say partial because about half way across, we all noticed that there was some sort of triathlon or perhaps just a swim competition going on in the strait underneath the bridge and we all stopped on occasion to watch a few seconds worth.  It ended up being some sort of two day swim competition in SF Bay.  On that particular day, contestants were swimming the length of the Golden Gate Bridge across the strait between the bay and the Pacific Ocean which seems dangerous.  I would figure currents there would be pretty intense depending on the tides.

Once back across, there were more tourists around to watch or to shoo us out of the way because they were beginning to reopen the eastern sidewalk.  Once back underneath the bridge heading toward the finish, there was the winding downhill stretch through wildflowers and eucalyptus trees.  It’s amazing how those trees smell.  They have a pretty unique and pleasant aroma.  We don’t have these in Louisiana, certainly not native at least.  The downhill did hurt more than expected; I’m guessing because of added pressure on the end of my toe.  But all-in-all the toe held up very well.

There was the tease where the race curved backwards towards the bridge again before finally heading home, and the finish line was still a misleading distance away.  By this point, I was having a lot of trouble maintaining a pace.  I even stopped for water at the station just a couple hundred yards from the finish because I wasn’t sure if I could push myself that hard to the finish or not.  The water stop happened to be there because the 10 milers still had another decent loop to make, but the volunteers were offering water to both sets of runners.  Many 10K runners were taking water so I caved in as well.  Why not.  And that final water did help in the final push to the end.  Turned out my time would be within 30 seconds of my personal record, which slightly disappointed me because I instantly knew I could have done better, but given the circumstance (especially where I was once expecting to simply walk most of the course due to my toe) I felt pretty good about my finish.  It gave me confidence to go ahead and work on getting back into a running stride for the end of April and into the month of May.  I held off on registering for additional races until I completed this race and evaluated myself.

So all-in-all, this race was a ton of fun.  How many races can say that they ran across the Golden Gate Bridge?  Even the way more popular Bay to Breakers Run you can’t say that I believe.  So in a way I do feel special.  🙂  I think this was a vary majestic race to help me cross off California from my 10K list.  I’m having long term aspirations now to perhaps at least compete in a local half marathon as early as next year and see how it goes, but I know that’s still pushing it so it’s still more just a dream for now.

Next Race: The one that I really started running for, the Colon Cancer Run (Get Your Rear in Gear).  This race will hit much closer to home since it’s what dad died of.  My aunt (my dad’s younger surviving sister) is racing/walking in it as well.  It should be a memorable event.