I think the statute of limitations for talking about a vacation is one month.  At least, that’s what I’m going to say since I’m writing about a vacation I took sliiiiightly less than a month ago.

I went to San Francisco to run the U.S. Half Marathon, which even though I was expecting hills and certainly didn’t train as much as I should have, was harder than I expected.  It probably didn’t help that after cruising through the first three miles of the race at 8:15 mile pace, I ran a 7:06 in mile four.  Up a giant hill.  Whoops.

My time of 1:58:26 was by far my worst ever.  But it was still an immensely fun run:

Another thing I’m going to use as an excuse for my less-than-record performance is that I spent the two days before the race walking all over the city — not exactly ideal for resting the legs.  But I don’t regret that at all.  About 18 hours before the race I was near Coit Tower, a 210-foot structure sitting atop Telegraph Hill.  I read about a scenic set of stairs climbing up to the site, and with no regard for the half marathon, I didn’t hesitate to climb them.

The view from up there is spectacular.  To the south, you’re eye-level with the tallest buildings in the financial district:

To the west, the city stretches out along the bay to the Golden Gate Bridge:

Alcatraz is off to the north, and the Bay Bridge linking San Francisco to Oakland is east of the site.  I have some pictures of the Bay Bridge from way up high, but I think sunrise was a little more picturesque:

I ran over the Golden Gate Bridge and back as part of the race, which was a pretty cool experience.  A tour on my first day in the city provided a slightly more relaxed view:

I almost left without taking a ride on the iconic cable cars.  Originally, I had planned to walk the roughly 3 miles to the Giants baseball stadium and then the Metro to the airport, but somehow I didn’t factor in that my legs wouldn’t be so up to that plan on the day after the race.  Fortunately, the cable car route covered most of the distance:

The stadium itself was pretty cool, even though I couldn’t see much of the inside (being the off-season and all).  But it was interesting to see how it fit into the surrounding neighborhood, and gave a glimpse of what the area around Nats Park may look like soon.  Of course, you can’t go wrong with any place that has an entry gate named after Willie Mays:

I’ll have to go back for a game some day.