20,000 people, 95% women!

This weekend I will be taking on the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco. To prepare, I've been resting as much as possible and carbo-loading, which in my view, includes Chocolate Satin Pie from Marie Callendar's and lots of Halloween candy. There is the requisite pasta thrown in there as well and plenty of protein to start the week, but chocolate is a necessary part of the training regimen. For today's travel blog, I have a few fun spots in San Francisco and a bit of the marathon thrown in there too.

If you're in San Francisco to view or run the marathon this weekend you can expect 20,000 runners and 95% of them are women! Men are allowed to run, but the primary registrants are still women. If you are a man, would you want to run this marathon? If you did, you could expect a coat check at mile 2.5 so that you don't have to shiver in the pre-dawn hours while at the starting line, 3 stations with a Luna energy chew, 2 with a Luna energy bar, lots of drinks, a Ghirardelli Chocolate stop, a stop with oranges, a couple stops for ailing feet and when you finish there is the expected t-shirt (in a lovely technical fabric) but the highlight really is the firemen, in tuxedos, with silver platters you that hand you something to hang around your neck. No, it's not a medal. It's a Tiffany's necklace. With the blue box. Too cute. And then free massages after. At the expo before the race there are manicures, massages and spa services. Of course, there is that 26.2 miles (map) to be covered in the middle of all this (or 13.1 if you go for the half marathon), but with all this fun, it makes the pain go down a little easier.

While I will be running through Golden Gate Park, I'm not sure where the course takes us, though I hope it's past the bison. I was surprised the first time I found them while cheering on a friend, the amazing Heather Gibson, as she raced there, but I thought it was a great unexpected section of the park! Another cool place that we'll be near on our run is the wave organ. It's one of those locations that if you didn't know it was there you could walk past it a hundred times and miss it. It's out on the water and as the waves come in, the pipes make music. It's a pretty unique design and another place to sit and enjoy the sailboats and the water.

If you're in SF on Sunday, come and cheer me and my 20,000 fellow runners on!