Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Recon Trip to SanFran



This past weekend, I accompanied my Dad on his weekend in San Francisco for the American Bar Association. Most of my time was not spent with the lawyers, however, but trekking up and down the hills of the city. It is absolutely incredible! We also traced out the route I will be running for the marathon in October, and luckily it skirts most of the big hills, because it follows much of the coastline. There is one or two mean hills after you pass the little bit of land that stretches out to the Golden Gate bridge, and when you are running back out of Golden Gate park. Nothin' a pro like me can't handle...I did do a 10-miler while I was there and despite getting only minimally lost, I got to see a mix of the areas I'll be running in and I am all the more excited!! The views alone will help get me through those 26.2 I hope.

I also stopped in at Niketown while I was perusing Union Square...and they had my shoes all over the store! Including here, highlighted in a glass box!



It was also fairly inspiring to be in the store, as they have huge photographs of Olympians and other amazing athletes lining the walls and escalators. It's one thing to buy a discounted pair of running shorts in TJ Maxx, and quite another to buy some look-way-too-intense-for-me spandex racing shorts with Paula Radcliffe looking over your shoulder!



Overall, San Francisco seems to be composed of many smaller cities, all connected with the buses and cable cars and intimidating hills...I think my favorite part was walking around Chinatown and being surprised, on several, separate occasions, by sudden parades of students from some Kung Fu school throwing firecrackers and beating drums and hoisting up those huge Chinese dragon costumes. It was always quite a show! I hope someone during my marathon gets surprised by one of these:

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