On Saturday morning, I ran the Mayor Newsom's Stadium to Stadium 10K Challenge with Gail and Sue Hee. The 10K route started at AT&T Park and ended at Monster Park. The race was to start at 9 am, so we took Muni down to AT&T Park around 8 am to make sure we were all good to go. At 8 am, it was already stinking hot, and this did not bode well for the run.
The route took us through the "up-and-coming" neighborhoods of Mission Bay, Dogpatch, Bayview and Hunter's Point. It was an interesting journey, going through some pretty dramatic socio-economical contrasts in the city.
It was stinking hot, no breeze to help, we tried to run in the shadow of buildings as much as possible. The route followed the Muni-T line down Third Street and then veered off Third Street toward Monster Park. At this point, there was no shade to be had, and thank goodness I was carrying some water.
Between three and four miles, you could see Monster Park in the distance, but it was just a painful tease, as there was still two miles to go, and you had to run around the huge parking lot and then back around in order to end in Monster Park.
The finish line was in the stadium on the grass, it was so nice to run on that grass.
All in all, it was a good race, I was surprised I still ran my usual time (9:45 min/mile pace) because the heat was so brutal and I thought for sure it had slowed me down.
The race was organized a little poorly, the transportation back to Muni was a mess and after waiting over half hour in the beating sun, we hitched a ride with some nice folks from Chico to the Muni. Thank goodness for kind souls!
Only six weeks left until the half-marathon...!
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