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Monday, January 02, 2012

My Bday Run Dec22..




Just before the start... 
So I tuned a year older this year…  I cannot believe how time flies..  As like every year, I do my bday run!!   Each year I run my age in miles, this year like in previous years, I simply added a mile to the previous year’s run.   And ... Gulp!!.  I cannot believe how fast time flies and how old I am getting.   It appears that it was a few moments ago when I had my first memory… yes, I do remember my first memory… what was yours?  Do you remember?
This year was different,   for the first time I had a friend run with me the whole duration of my run.  In the past I had friends join me for some parts of it, but this time my friend Jim was crazy enough to start and finish with me.
Somebody left a couch for me to take a rest... 
Bright and early, Jim drove to my house and we started the awesome run.   I knew it was going to be a great day, it wasn’t raining like last year.   The weather was cold, but not wet, so I knew from the start that we were going to have a great day.
This wasn’t a race, it was simply a day to cover my age in miles and a day of having fun, it happen to be also Jim’s longest run ever, so not I wasn’t only celebrating my birthday, but Jim was about to complete something he had never done before.
Of course, our first stop was at SCCF where I had the chance to go to the bathroom and remove my hoodie,  it was going to be a hot day.  We continued our long run and decided to have breakfast in Burlingame, at Panera bread.   We got coffee and a breakfast bagel, sat by the window and eat in earnest.   Unlucky for Jim, he was sitting next a lady who had some gas problems, and lucky for me that I am hard of hearing so I did not hear her at all.   The smell, I thought, was a product of our sweat.  It turns out that it wasn’t… LOL.
Entering SF!!
Our next hard stop was at “The ferry Building” in SF where we got hamburgers and potato fries.   Jim also ordered a yummy MilkShake.  We needed all the calories we could get into our already tired bodies.   It was a good recovery meal before making the final push all the way to Sausalito.   After an hour of eating and resting, and of course facebooking, we got ready to go once again.  
The weather had gotten a little colder, but as soon as we started moving again, I got warm and sweaty.  Because it was the end of the year, we could notice a greater influx of tourists to one of the SF landmarks, The Fisherman’s wharf.  We made out of there, unscratched, however there were lots of stares as you could imagine.  Who are these people who are moving so slowly, pretending to be running and looking in as if they are in pain or something?  They didn’t know that at this time we had run over a marathon already and Jim had the beginnings of a cramping episode.  Thank God it didn’t happen totally…  
Jim Stretching trying to avoid cramping!!


We reached the Golden Gate Bridge just in time to take a few pictures still with the light of day.   It was beautiful and I just loved the series of pictures I took of the Golden Gate Bridge as we were far, and then closer and then really close and finally on the Bridge.   As we were running on the Bridge, we heard someone honking,  we didn’t know it then, but turns out it was our ride.  Jim’s dog was sleeping and as soon as he “smelled” him, he started to bark.  Apparently Jim smells so bad that his dog can recognize his smell even if he is on car driving over the GG Bridge and Jim is running outside, Funny.
First Bridge


First Look


Closer


Closer


Closer


Finally on it!!


We made it to the other end of the bridge and made our way to Sausalito.  This was the only part that was scary simply because it was already getting dark and there is no shoulder in some of the roads from the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito.   But, needless to say, we made it to the end.  We finished my bday run, and Jim ran the farthest he has ever run…  We had a good day.  If you want to know how long was my run, here is a clue…. yes, it was over 40 miles +-2.