I ran the “City Half” of the San Francisco Marathon this weekend, which is the second half of the full marathon course. You can also opt to do the first half, which goes over the Golden Gate Bridge and back, but that’s the course I’ve done multiple times as part of the Golden Gate Half, which happens in November. The City Half has the advantage of a luxurious 8:30am start time (the first half starts at 7:00am, and the full marathon starts at 6:30am). I woke up before my alarm, which was nice, because the worst part of running a race is always having to get up at a ridiculous hour.

The course started at Ocean Beach, looped around Golden Gate Park, went southeast through Dogpatch, and ended at the Ferry Building. It was a very fun course, with only a few not-too-steep hills. It was very foggy, but not too cold, at the starting line.

A benefit of going through the city was that a lot more spectators than usual were out, given that it went through neighborhoods where people lived. My favorite was a guy playing a tuba in the middle of Guerrero, and someone with the sign “YOU’RE RUNNING BETTER THAN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT!” Running across it also really helps you appreciate how small San Francisco is.

Going down JFK Drive in Golden Gate Bridge also allowed me to see the now-finished sea serpent sculpture that’s near the Prayerbook Cross waterfall. It looked super cool!

I placed 19th in the women 50-54 category, but I’m always just trying to match or beat my previous time. The only bummer about the race was that it wasn’t particularly well-organized – there was only one sugar gel station that I saw (luckily I brought my own), and the gear pickup at the end was a disaster. We waited almost an hour to get our stuff! Anyway, it was still a great experience, and I have another finisher medal for my shelf.