WE DID IT!

 San Francisco Marathon 2011

 I never thought this day would actually come. We've been training for this marathon since Opal was 6 weeks old. The race started around 5:30 am....which sucked, but it was cool to see the city with its lights and the sun slowly coming up.

 There were hoards of people flocking to the starting line....it was so cool. I felt like I was instant friends with everyone because we had this thing in common that we had been working towards. (I kept on talking to random people like they were my bff because I was so excited and I'm sure they thought I was crazy!)

 The starting line. Jon didn't even notice the chinese lanterns until he saw this picture. They have people start the race based on their expected finishing time. Then they have everybody run in waves so there isn't too much congestion on the Golden Gate Bridge, which we ran over. Since Jon was running it much faster than I was going to he started 40 minutes before I even reached the start line.....needless to say I had a lot of time to take in my surroundings and take pictures....not the best ones, but they'll do the trick for memory sake.

 We started on Emarcadero at the piers right in front of the Ferry Building. It was cool seeing the Bay Bridge behind us all lit up.

 The race was run in a loop so we ended up where we started. It was such an amazing route! I loved it. We ran down Emarcadero, through Crissy Field and across the Golden Gate Bridge and then back. Then we did some uphill through the Presidio and ran along Baker's Beach for awhile until we hit the avenues which led us to Golden Gate Park. That was our home turf since Jon and I did most of our training there. I know that place like the back of my hand, so it felt relaxing to run there.  Then we came out of the park and ran through the Haight down through the Mission and by the Giant's stadium and then under the Bay Bridge and back to the Ferry Building. 26.2 miles.Wow.

Jon got an awesome time of 3hours and 53 minutes. His goal was to finish under four hours! That guy is amazing. My original goal right after I had Opal was to finish the race before they started packing everything up, which is around 6 hours. The day before the race we went to the race expo where we met the pacers. These guys run the whole time holding a sign with the time they are going to finish. So if you stick with them throughout the race, you will finish in that time. I decided to follow a pacer since the last half-marathon Jon and I did I started out way too fast and totally bonked at the end. So my new goal was to finish in 4 hours and 40 minutes. That was the pacer I was going to run with. I was feeling so good during the race though that the last 6 miles I decided to go for it and finished in 4 hours and 31 minutes! I'm pretty dang proud of myself.

It has taken us about a week to recover and to walk like the age we are and not like 90 year olds. My mistake was going to the mall for three hours the next day with on of my best friends Anisha...my feet were so mad at me!