My friend Tanya and I ran the SF Giant Race in San Francisco. We ran the half marathon. Last year I ran the 10k, it was so nice I knew I wanted to come back this year and run the half.
We opted to drive to San Francisco the morning of the race instead of staying the night in San Francisco. The pros are we had our car to sit in until a few minutes before the run started. It is dark and cold in the early morning from my experience last year. We were able to stay warm longer by staying in the car. Obviously saving the expense of hotel and food. We are only a couple hours away so that gives us the choice.
The cons are waking up at 3:00am to get ready and make that two hour drive to the city (not so much fun). Having to drive back home after running 13.1 miles is a bit tiring. We did stop to eat breakfast before making that drive. But we did still have on our running clothes and had to wait until we returned home to shower and take a nap.
The race stated at 7:00am, by that time the sun was coming up. The sky the clear with little to no wind and once we start running we warm up quickly.
I had to pull out my phone and take some selfies with Tanya. The weather was so nice, the scenic route was just amazing. We were having a good time.
When we made it to this point where we saw this unobstructed view of the Golden Gate Bridge we had reached the half turnaround point. Most of the run we had the ocean on one side of. On a clear, what is better than that, nothing!
We finished the race inside AT&T Park, that is something you don’t get to do everyday. There were some any people in the park how had finished their race (10k or Half Marathon).
I will definitely being registering for this race again next year. There is a series of four runs provided by Giant Race (Scottsdale, Sacramento, San Jose and San Francisco). Maybe next year I will run all of them or at the very least the three in California. If I complete the Sacramento, San Jose and Francisco race I would earn the Three Bagger Award!
Next year I we probably drive down the day before and stay in a hotel. Last year I stayed at the host hotel but there was not much with in walking distance around the hotel. The morning of the race there was a bus provided for runners to be dropped off in front of AT&T Park, then picked up and taken back to the hotel after the race. I used the bus for drop off, it was an hour before the race started and it was very cold and dark outside (that part was miserable). Waiting for the bus to come back around to transport back to the hotel after finishing the run was not fun either (I ended up getting an Uber).
So from my experiences this year and last year the best way to go is get a hotel the night before, drive my own car to the race. That will give me an opportunity to attend the race Expo and packet pick-up, there are so many vendors there. Staying the night will give me extra time to sleep and place to go back to, to shower and change before grabbing a bit to eat and driving back home. Besides it’s a good excuse for a little getaway for sightseeing, shopping and great restaurants (especially seafood).
In the front of AT&T Park they had a very nice tribute for the anniversary of 9/11. We will never forget.
