It’s what Nike Women’s Marathon and Half Marathon are all about.  It’s the only reason I endured 13.1 miles of hilly, painful course – well that and the firemen in tuxes (if we’re being completely honest ).

Julia and I awoke at the crack of dawn – 5am!  We dressed, ate breakfast and headed to the bus stop.

We were the only crazy ones on the bus for a few stops – the only reason to be up at 5am on a Sunday morning?  That little blue box you saw up above.

We got dropped off about a mile away from the start, and our quest quickly became 14.1 for the coveted blue boxes.

Once at the start line, we had lots of time to kill.  So we stopped for a photo op.

Then we hit up the port-a-potties.  Which, btw, if you’ve never run a race before and there are like 50 port-a-potties, here’s a piece of advice: THERE IS MORE THAN ONE LINE!!  The further down you go away from the race, the shorter the lines!  We seriously walked by a line for the bathrooms of OVER 200 people for the first set of 5!  We walked by them, and got in a line of like 5 people further down the row.  And when we tried to tell people on our way back towards the corral that there were much shorter lines, no one believed  us and they all stayed in the long line.  Odd, soooo odd.

Anyways, at 7am the gun went off, and it took us OVER SIX MINUTES to cross the start line.  Luckily we didn’t care, as Julia and I had agreed that we were doing this race for fun.  We ran without my Garmin, and without a care in the world – and we had a blast.  We stopped for multiple photo ops, enjoyed the music and each other’s companies.

(World’s most awkward photo ever….)

And before we knew it, the horrible hills were over, and we were running through Golden Gate park towards the finish.

(I was laughing at something…)

And then we were greeted by these handsome creatures.

(Especially the tall one on the right – hello, sir, can I have your number?  )

And we got what we were running for…the little blue boxes.

We earned those little blue boxes.  And I’m so happy to have done the race for a second year in a row. 

I may not have run my fastest race ever, but I had a blast with one of my very good friends.  While I was no where near breaking any of my personal records, it was by far one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve ever had.  In fact, we ran this half marathon AT THE SAME PACE we ran the marathon last year: 11 minute miles.  And guess, what, for the first time, I really didn’t care I wasn’t breaking any records.  And I also didn’t hurt after.  Multiple wins for this one!

Because in reality, all I was after was this:

Worth every hill.

Have you ever just taken a step back, stopped trying to do your ‘best,’ and just really enjoyed an experience, without a care of ‘how fast’ or ‘how well’ you were doing?  I did – for one of the first times ever – and I am so happy I did.  13.1 miles with a good friend, for Tiffany’s?  The best 2 hours and 22 minutes I’ve had in a long time.  Thanks for a great run, Julia!  (And to your wonderful husband for cheering us on and not leaving us at the finish line for running slower than molasses!)