GIRL POWER! PINK! TIFFANY'S! HOT FIREMEN!
Me at the NWM Expo
This was definitely a very fun experience for me. I got to eat plenty of good food in San Francisco, see a bunch of good friends, and run a lot - all my favourite things in life! And somewhere along the way, I PR'ed with 3:49:19!
I thought the course was very hilly, with most of the hills in the first half of the course. Views along the first half of the course were great, but the 2nd half was a bit boring since we were either running through parks or by the side of the road. It didn't help that it started raining the second half and the rain didn't let up until after the race was over. The finish was by the beach which would've been nice had it not been rainy and cold. The worse part of the race was waiting for the shuttle buses back to the start - I had to walk almost a mile to the end of the shuttle line and then wait for almost an hour. It was miserable and took away a lot of the elation I got from finishing a marathon!
Fading in the final miles
Course support is ok with water & Gatorade stations every 2 miles, staffed almost entirely by high schoolers. There were a few Clif Bloks / Luna bar fuel stations, one orange slices station, and a chocolate station each for the half & full marathoners. The chocolate station was so sad - it happened at mile 22 for me, and by then the last thing I wanted to do was eat chocolate. As usual, I had a lot of trouble holding back and ended up running a slower second half even though the big hills were all in the first half.
The race is dominated by Team in Training runners and walkers. I think that people starting near the back had some trouble weaving through TNT groups that run or walk together in lines of 5, but I was fine. Runners can enter any corral they wish, so there were lots of walkers in the early corrals. There were lots of TNT coaches on the sidelines who would run up hills with their runners, then head back down the hills to pick up another group. I read some people's complaints that the non-TNT runners "got no love" along the course, but to be honest, I really didn't notice. I thought the TNT walkers were pretty considerate about walking on the side of the road and allowing runners to pass. Crowd support was especially sparse during the second half of the race since most of the runners opt for the half-marathon option.
The race also offered a 5:30am unofficial early start to participants (all TNT as far as I can tell) who wanted to walk the entire thing. These people walked a lot of the race unsupported as the race didn't officially start until 7am. They also had to walk the first two hours in the dark (sunrise was around 7:20am) and a good portion in the rain. I definitely admire them for their tenacity! In general, this was a very walker-friendly race and runners were given 6.5 hrs to complete the course, no matter their distance. I think I finished my full marathon at the same time as lots of half-marathon walkers (the finish line was the same for both races).
The Tiffany's necklace (instead of a finisher's medal) was awesome. I think some people thought that it was pretty ugly, but whatever, it's way better-looking & more functional than the other medals I've received. Unfortunately, (from what I've read) they RAN OUT of finishers medals for people who finished after 5 hours so those people had to settle for the 2007 NWM necklace and the promise that they would be mailed a 2010 necklace later on. Even worse, they also ran out of heat blankets for people who finished after 4:30 or 5 hours which I thought was inexcusable. The weather was miserable, and people had been exposed to the rain and cold for so long! They were the ones that needed the blankets the most.
Tiffany's finisher necklace. "I RUN TO BE." - what?
The other swag they gave us was ok. Everyone got hot pink Nike dri-fit shirts at the end of the race (not before like most other races). There was lots of free food including products by Ghirardelli, Luna, Clif, Kashi, POM, etc. The expo wasn't great though - they set up a tent in the middle of Union Square and it was crowded and small with long lines for everything (which included foot rubs, manicures, & massages).
As others have mentioned, the website sucked. It was impossible to navigate to the relevant information quickly. Nike really needs to devote some time to building an actual site for the NWM, instead of just "tagging" NWM-related entries on it's blog. It took me like 15 minutes to find out what time the race was starting! The results page was also buggy for the first 30 hours after the race.
The race is geared exclusively to women. I did see some guys doing it but many of them were wearing skirts, pink wigs, or tutus. I saw more than one guy wearing a shirt with his phone number on it. I mistakenly thought that all the finishers shirts were for girls, but I've been told that they did have men's shirts available (not sure if they were hot pink too). Everyone who finished got the same necklace.
All in all, I had a good time in SF, but I don't think I would run the full again. The second half of the course wasn't as pretty and the weather in SF is too unpredictable. If I do it again, I'm going to opt for the half.
Final stats:
3:49:19 (8:45 pace)
229 / 4788 overall
188 / 4384 females
43 / 1009 age group
Links: Garmin Results Race Site
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