Mad dash

On a usual weekday morning, my alarm blasts me awake like a call to arms. Except when it doesn't go off, like it didn't on Sunday at 5 a.m. to wake us for the marathon we've been anticipating for months. But lucky for me, I have a pretty killer backup—my internal clock. It decided that I needed to get up at 6:30 a.m. for work.

Amy, who was out cold on my futon downstairs, said it sounded like I fell out of bed and screamed, "Oh, shit!" OK, I did yell some and it wasn't polite, but there was no falling. More like leaping. Then a frenzy of finding my warmest pajama pants, hurling some layers onto myself and more into a backpack, and bursting out the front door into the car. We had 25 minutes to get to the city, park as close to the starting line as the event allowed (not close), and track down Miss Mobtown.

I won't tell you how fast I drove, but it's a good thing there aren't any cops on the Bay Bridge at 6:45 a.m. on weekends. We got to SoMa by 6:50 or so, parked at 5th and Mission, and sprinted toward Union Square. My backpack zipper broke and we took a wrong turn once, but Amy's former SF-dweller instincts kicked in and set us straight. We booked up the final block toward the cheering crowd at exactly 7 a.m. as they counted down, "5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1!" We found our pace group, connected with our third musketeer via the magic of cell phones, and even ran into a couple of Amy's old coworkers as we slogged through hordes of revved-up ladies to the starting line.

After that exciting beginning, walking 13.1 miles in the foggy, gray dampness felt almost mellow. We kept a decent pace, 12–15 minutes per mile, and the only time we slowed to a crawl was in the irritatingly long lines for the porta-potties. 15,000 women and about two stalls every three miles. We decided The Man must have planned the event.

But The Woman played her hand also, because there were oxygen stops, Luna Bar stops, a banana stop, and a chocolate stop along the route. Plus adorable high-school cheerleaders and volunteers cheering for us and handing out water, plus a different DJ spinning semi-inspiring music (salsa: yes; hip-hop: yes; Enya: no) every few miles. And, of course, the wildly gay dance troupe that mamboed us along at mile 9. We even passed by Casa Robin Williams in the fancy part of town. I love San Francisco.

Our intrepid crew made it to the end as the race clock hit 4.5 hours. If you subtract the 15 minutes it took to reach the official beginning after they started the clock, minus 25 minutes or so for bathroom breaks, we finished in a little under the four hours I predicted. And I think I'm only slightly worse for wear, thanks to some quality stretching and the massage we scheduled for afterward.

My Tiffany necklace is lovely, by the way, but not so lovely as the tuxedoed gent who handed it to me on a silver platter just past the finish line. I guess I take it back—The Woman must have been Chief Planner after all.