It all began with a business trip to San Francisco and so I asked my friend what should I do while I was there. She had lived there and knows the city well.

“Oh, my husband Willem will be there and he’s running the San Francisco Marathon on the 27th of July, why don’t you join him?”

And that’s how I ended up entering and running the SFO Marathon 2014.

The race expo was really fun and there were actually some interesting things available on sale. Everything was well organized and easy to find, although the rand dollar exchange rate made everything fairly expensive. But when things are on sale the USA is one of the cheapest places for clothing and running paraphernalia.

The San Francisco Marathon Is one of the smaller big city marathons because of the perception that it is quite hilly. Reading blogs before the race, I found a lot of comments that it is not a PB or first marathon race, so a lot of people avoid it. How every, San Francisco is very cool in the middle of July, whereas the rest of the USA is very, very hot at this time of the year, so it gives you the chance to run in cool weather in the middle of summer in the USA.

An interesting thing about the race is that there are 2 half marathons that cover the first and second halves of the marathon. The first half runs over the Golden Gate Bridge and is therefore more popular and sold out first, but all three the long distance events were sold out this year. There is also a shorter 5km fun run and a double marathon ultra of 52 miles which take place on the day. About 6800 people ran the full marathon, with an additional 20,000 people taking part in the halves and the other races.

Anyway, raceday dawned with a 5:52 wave 4 start. My friend’s husband was joined by 3 colleagues and we all started together. We started together with the first half marathon runs, so the waves were very big. It was dark and cool, with the illuminated Bay Bridge a spectacular highlight across the bay and behind us as we waited to go.

The first 5km or so were flat and fast all along the waterfront (Embarcadero for those who have visited the city), through the well-known Fisherman’s Wharf and along the seafront until you hit a short, sharp climb up to the Golden Gate Bridge. This was a highlight for me – the iconic bridge was built in the 1930s and is one of the most recognizable bridges in the world. It is actually a little bit of a climb as you run over the bridge. After reaching the midpoint it slopes down again. This was the part of the race with the least spectators. After the bridge on the other side of the bay there was a Rock n roll trio playing and lots of support, then you turned and ran back over the Golden Gate Bridge into Golden Gate Park.

This was a mildly hilly (nothing like we have here in Cape Town), undulating part of the run through a well looked after, pretty park. The first half marathon runners finished here and the second half marathon runners started here and joined us to the finish back on the waterfront. My first half time was about 1:50 and I was feeling good. The support all along this part of the race was fantastic and I looked forward to the second half of the run.

We continued through the Golden Gate park, undulating through the park and then through the street of San Francisco. Due to traffic congestion issues, there were various adjustments to the course and everyone runs a slightly different route as they open and close streets to let the traffic flow. Everyone runs the same distance in the end, but it was a little disconcerting not knowing that this WS going to happen and thinking that I had taken a wrong route.

After running all along the picturesque streets of San Francisco, you end up back on the waterfront, running past the San Francisco Giants baseball stadium (Candlestick Park) and back out the Embarcadero street to the finish. This part of the course was fairly hot and the sun had some out at this stage, after most of the race being cool and overcast – perfect running weather.

The warmer, flatter final 5km or so of the marathon felt a little tougher than the earlier parts, but I pushed through and ran a negative split of 1:47 for the second half marathon for a final time of 3:37’56, which placed me 668th out of 6580 finishers. An improvement of 47 minutes from my first marathon that I ran last year in Knysna, so I was very pleased with my run.

At the finish each runner got a box of water (tetrapak packaging), a bottle of coconut water (an awesome recovery drink!), a huge medal and a very handy after-race space blanket that was very welcome.

My friends had all had good races, and we finished in 3:27, 3:37, 3:47, 3:57 and 4:36 respectively!

In summary, this was a fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I thoroughly enjoyed the run. I was particularly pleased at how good and pain-free I felt! The support and organisation of the run was excellent and I would recommend it wholeheartedly.

Miscellaneous information:

Entry fee: $200.00 (there are early bird discounts)

Enter by: I entered about 6 weeks before the race and it sold out by the beginning of July.

The half marathons sell out earlier.

Accommodation and getting there: San Francisco like all of the USA is quite expensive, so unless you have a business trip or another excuse to be there, it is going to be costly to get there. There is a 9 hour time difference between San Francisco and RSA, so get there early to acclimatize to the time difference.