San Francisco, California United States Nike 62F / 17C Overcast

Total Time = 4h 07m 32s Overall Rank = 524/4897 Age Group = M40-44 Age Group Rank = 11/46

It's been a whirlwind of races for me in the last couple months. 6 weeks ago, I did IM Wisconsin; 3 weeks ago, a 50K trail race; 2 weeks ago, the Mt. Diablo Challenge; 1 week ago, my first successful 50 mile trail race.

So, the week leading up to NWM, I didn't do any running at all since I was purely in recovery mode. However, I had signed up for NWM through work, Jamba Juice. Since they are a major sponsor, we get a block of registrations so I definitely wanted to run for our team at work, esp. since I didn't get to run last year because I had a race the same weekend.

Even though my legs were not yet recovered, I still debated whether or not I should try to "race" the event or just do it for fun. The fact that I was even considering racing it all was vanity and hubris prompted by the very weak race results from the 2007 race - in the M40-44 category, third place was 3:57, which would easily have been within my reach.

So, Saturday before the race (on Sunday), I finally decide I'll do it for fun. The slogan for the race is "Run like a girl" so I wanted to dress up accordingly. I mentioned to my wife how I was looking for something hot pink and was going to go shopping at some of the sport stores and buy a pink wig to match. She pulled out a hot pink costume dress she had made many years ago and I tried it on. It fit pretty well. A little snug in the waist, but really not too bad a fit. Usually when putting on a dress, I find the shoulders are the hardest part to fit, but since this dress was a halter top, problem solved.

Later that day, DW and I went for a little shortie run in Golden Gate park (sans dress) just to give my legs a little test and, yeah, they were still recovering from last Saturday, so running for fun tomorrow was the right choice. However, I did feel sluggish enough on that mini run that I had no idea if I'd last a full 26.2.

After our run, we went shopping in the Haight for a wig. We found a store with a great selection. There were several pink wigs from which to choose. One of them we saw was a medium length hot pink wig with blonde streaks. We both agreed that the streaks gave the wig a little more depth than a simple plain pink-only wig, so we bought it.

Then we had brunch at Bia's, a Mediterranean/California restaurant with organic produce. I had the chicken apple sausage scramble and DW had a very tasty lamb sandwich.

After getting back home, I took a shower and took the opportunity to shave my legs and my arm pits (oh the razor burn...). We then took a nap. I still had to go down to Union Square for packet pick up, so we biked, which is by far my preferred form of transport in the city. There was valet bike parking for the event, which is always nice. We briefly saw the expotique which included an oxygen bar, gait analysis (looked cool, but didn't want to wait), manicures (would have been nice before the race, but didn't want to wait either), and other things, but we headed over to registration first. Fortunately, there was no wait at all and I picked up my packet, chip, bib, and goodies. On the way out, they had pace bracelets available.

It just so happened that they were about to give out Jamba Juice's so we waited for a bit and each grabbed one. I was wearing my jamba race shirt and we chatted with some of the jamba team members working at the event (and some also racing tomorrow too).

We then headed into the expo again. We looked around a bit. DW tried the oxygen bar (not impressed). We headed over to the sign making area (another Jamba provided booth) and briefly chatted with the team members working there. DW made a sign and grabbed an extra blank one.

On our way home, we had to run an errand, but we also happened to pass the San Francisco Chocolate Factory, which I didn't even know existed. DW and I eat chocolate every day, so we had to check it out. We bought a variety of dark chocolate bars.

Back at home, I was feeling I bit under the weather so i rested up a bit more. We eventually had dinner, which consisted of spinach pasta with arrabiata sauce (spicy, so not exactly the best choice before a race) and a fresh turkey sausage. Dark chocolate for dessert, of course.

Went to bed at about 10pm with alarms set for 5am. At 5am, I'm up and making coffee. Normally we have coffee we roast ourselves, but I recently went to visit a colleague over at Peet's and he gave me a tour of their newish roastery in Alameda and gave me a pound of their holiday blend, so we've been drinking that this week. I also had my usual Vital Vittles toast with locally produced honey (eucalyptus).

I put on my running shorts and then put on the dress. i was a little concerned about the sequins lining the halter top since they might chafe. We adjusted the top so that hopefully they wouldn't rub as much and I also put on some body glide (ha, I'll bet no one ever at Body Glide ever thought it'd be used for this purpose). i put on the wig. I knew the hair was going to by flying all over the place, so DW put in a few bobby pins, one on each side and one at the bangs, to try to keep hair out of my face.



I packed my matching pink purse with 4 gus (espresso, vanilla, and the two new roctane flavors - blueberry pomegranate and vanilla orange), a Zone Perfect bar, and my inhaler. DW also pulls out some long white gloves for me to wear. She says they were her mom's so they are vintage and I better not lose them.

Soon enough, it's time to go. We head downtown and DW drops me off where she can. I'm supposed to meet up with the jamba team at 6:15 in front of the jamba juice store at montgomery and clay. We're supposed to then receive a nike escort to the VIP starting group for the race. It's chilly this early in the morning, but I have a light shell. The rest of my fellow team mates are a bit surprised, but pleasantly so, by my getup. A couple of the guys who ran for the team last year dressed up cheerleaders then, so I'm just carrying on the tradition. I am taking it a bit further, though, since my gown is almost full length, a bit more ostentatious, and I'm doing the full mary! If I were cycling, I'd stuff my shell into my cycling jersey pockets, but since I'm wearing an evening gown, I find the the halter top a convenient place to be stuffed. I'm not going to be checking anything in.

Eventually, we walk over to the start without the nike escorts, but we're supposed to be given access if we just name drop (of course, I can't remember the names of the people). As we get close to Union Square, we can see how many people are here. Wow. The elites take off at 7:40. I have no idea where bathrooms are, but fortunately, I don't need to go (which probably means I'm dehydrated, esp. I didn't hydrate with anything but coffee).

We make our way through the large crowd to the race corral entrance, which is quite small considering how large this race is. They won't let us in because we don't have sub 9:00 pace bracelets. We explain we're from jamba juice since everyone (except me) is in their jamba race shirt. Eventually one of the volunteers relents and let's us in. Of course, we don't really know where the VIP section is (front of the pack?), but none of us really want to be at the very front anyway. Even though it's only 50 something degrees, the big mass of people keeps us all pretty warm and I don't really feel cold at all in my halter top.

I'm not big on warmups...so nothing for me.