Watt's Running

Had a great time running the Bay to Breakers with Justin on Sunday May 20,2007. See his thoughts on it in Bay to @#$%! Breakers, 2007 blog post. The weather was excellent – about 50 degrees. The course was excellent. I had expected one tough big (300′) hill, but with the intervening flats of the crossing streets and our pace it wasn’t bad. Also the next four miles to the end were either flat or downhill hill which was sweet. I love downhills. So we stayed together and finished in 1:24:02. I don’t have the splits on my watch anymore, but the first few were 12:30 because of the massive crowds. The ones at the end were closer to 10:20 to 10:40. Overall our pace was 11:16 per mile. So I would definitely do it again – especially doing it together, which made it twice the fun. Oh, and the nude runners were nothing to look at, but the centipedes and bunches of girls in mini-sailor costumes and devil outfits were much more fun to watch if I say so myself. Thanks to Justin for making this happen. I was only able to do this with the generous gift of a plane ticket.

Hey, there’s a massive hill at mile 2.5. What have Justin and I signed up for? Oh my gawd it’s over 300 feet! Are we ready to climb Mt Hayes? Whew! But from mile 5.5 to the end it’s smooth sailing – it’s pretty much downhill. Sweet. See this map. In any case I’m still looking forward to it.

P.S. I ran Town Lake 10 miles this morning in about 1:36 which is fast for me now, but I found it exceedingly hard. The temperature, the humidity, my inability to breathe, my tired legs, all of this made it a tough run. I ran it all, but had a few short walk/water breaks which were more than I normally do.

Well, well, well, my sweet son, Justin, sent me e-mail over a month ago and suggested that I travel to San Francisco to run the Bay to Breakers 12K. So I looked at it for about 1 minute and said no way. No time, no money and I haven’t run a race since the Cap 10K. So about two days ago he sent me another e-mail about the race. This time it included possible flight times. I responded by asking if he would join me, and he replied yes. Well I though that would be fun. So I checked to see if my frequent flyer would be available on such short notice. Darn, it wasn’t. So a told him it wasn’t going to happen. And did you know what he did… he bought me a ticket. Yup, an airline ticket to come and visit him and to run with him. How very nice. In return I registered us for the race and paid the entry fees. Today at work I told my manager that I’d be taking vacation next week. How sweet is that. A neat break to see my son. Oh and I’ll also be seeing his sweetie, Stephanie too, a double treat. We’ll do this one together – nice and slow and easy especially up the enormous hill. I’m very much looking forward to it.