This one’s going to be a little tough, because it was at the 2023 edition of this race that I knew there was trouble a-brewing in the ol’ ticker.

FLASHBACK TO JULY, 2023

A quick flashback/review: in early July of 2023, just last year, I knew I was a badass hill runner. I had completed the LA Marathon (despite cramps that kept me from finishing the race at my 4:20 pace time), and came within 30 seconds of breaking two hours in the Mountains 2 Beach half marathon (itself a revenge race for a series of injuries that kept me out of the 2022 LA Marathon), and I had learned how to balance easy runs with speed work, flexibility, movement, and strength work.

The San Francisco Marathon was a major multiple event: an actual marathon that took you over the Golden Gate Bridge and back, then past Fort Mason and up into those legendary hills, then east through Golden Gate Park, the Haight district, then down to the San Francisco Bay waterfront and back to downtown for a glorious finish. The race includes an “ultra,” consisting of running the marathon twice (starting at 10PM the night before), and two separate half marathons: the “Bridge Half” which takes you from downtown SF, across the Golden Gate Bridge, then back to Fort Mason for a run up to the finish line at Golden Gate Park. The “City Half” starts at Fort Mason, takes you up the hills to Golden Gate Park, through the Haight district and to the main finish line downtown. (Oh, there is a 5k and 10k thrown in as well, but who cares, right?)

I had it all planned out: a road trip to SF to spend the night at a Motel 6 in the Tenderloin District, a two mile bike ride down stair-stepping streets to a shuttle to take me up to the Fort Mason start line, then once the race was done, a nice relaxing bike ride up the hill back to my motel followed by a warm shower and a drive home via an obscure campground I had discovered north of Yosemite National Park.

I had spent some time walking around the rather challenging yet culturally interesting neighborhood, bought some snacks and breakfast for the next morning, then retreated to my motel room for the night.

I woke up at 2AM with an arrhythmia so powerful that it nearly shook the bed.

I’ve been seeing a cardiologist regularly, and he prescribed Diltiazem, which after an hour or two normally calmed down the arrhythmia until I could get to sleep. Except it didn’t calm down. It pounded away all night long. Finally, close to morning, I was able to close my eyes, but when I woke up and prepared for the race, taking another dose of the Diltiazem, I noticed that the arrhythmia had not abated. The medication helped, but I could feel the pitter-patter of my heart continuing its irregular heartbeat.

(Remember, at this time I did not yet know that I had a significant blockage in my heart’s left descending artery).

Got to the start line. Locked up my bike. Immediately sought out the medical tent and sat my ass down. There were several RN’s and I believe a few medical students hanging around waiting to be shuttled up to their various stations. None of them could detect my problem, perhaps due to the Diltiazem, but I could certainly feel it.

Got shuttled up to the start line, nervous as hell, unsure how the race was going to go. I would certainly try my best, but what would that even mean? A few years earlier, I would get up in the middle of the night and do angry wind sprints to “shock” my heart back to normal, all to no avail. Hell, I even sprinted two miles. Didn’t help then. And this felt different.

The gun went off, and we began to run. Within a half mile, I had to stop running and walk. By the time we got to the hills above Fort Mason, I was weeping. I should have been running up those God damned hills, but I couldn’t make any extended effort at all without resting my hands on my knees and panting. I stopped at another medical tent at mile 4, and the nurse this time was able to detect the arrhythmia. I asked what I could do. She said as long as I was feeling no pain, I could continue. So I did. Because I wasn’t feeling any.

We entered Golden Gate Park at mile six, and I’d frigging had it. The shuttle buses were taking “Bridge Half” finishers back down to the main finish line, and I had made up my mind to hop on a bus and join them. But suddenly, the arrhythmia stopped. I was exhausted, but reborn. I could run! Finally! Except that my body was worn down from all the effort I was putting in to run with minimal oxygen and fuel getting pumped to my starving muscles.

Finally crossed the finish line, looking like, and feeling like, well, hammered dog shit. It had taken me an hour and forty minutes to run the first 6.5 miles, and just over an hour to run the last 6.5. I ran as best as I could until exhaustion took over, forcing me to walk. I repeated the cycle several times. It wasn’t determination that pushed me to the finish line; it was anger. It was the absolute worst running experience I’d ever had.

But that was 2023. I would shortly learn that I had developed a 100% blockage in my “widow maker” artery. At the time I was running the SF half that year, I had no clue. But I should have known. What I didn’t know was that the blockage was likely well above 80% and was getting ready to close. But there was no chest pain, which is the warning sign that something serious is about to happen. Then again, my cardiologist didn’t know either because was not feeling pain.

My cardiologist and I agreed that it was time for drastic measures to deal with the arrhythmia: an ablation procedure. But then the events of September of 2023 happened, and we had to prevent a serious or fatal myocardial infarction from possibly ending my life. Luckily, we got that fixed just in time.

AND NOW, HERE WE ARE IN 2024

I had to prove it to myself. Prove what, you ask? I had to show this great and wonderful Universe that I was the person in charge of my life.

I burned July 28, 2024 as deeply into my brain as I possibly could. I registered for the same “City Half Marathon” I had ran the year before, and I registered for it as an act of faith. I wasn’t even sure if I would have my blockage fixed by then or not. But I had to register. I had no choice.

I made a reservation in the same hotel, called the Cathedral Hill Hotel (it may be a Motel 6 now). I planned to bike down to the shuttle buses along the same route I’d taken in 2023, the previous year. I used the same hydration and fueling strategy I’d used the year before, I bought the same dinner and snacks at the same hole-in-the-wall liquor store across from the motel. (Note: the Tenderloin District is not, repeat NOT, the safest area in SF!)

But there was one thing I did differently: I prayed to literally every single god, being, spirit, universal force etc. that I could think of that my heart would not go into arrhythmia again, and boy did I celebrate like an m-fer when I woke up on race day with my freshly stinted ticker in normal sinus rhythm.

Now keep in mind, if I had awoken with an arrhythmia after all, it would not have been the disappointment it was last year. Recall from my experience at the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon that I was able to run with an arrhythmia because I had a wide open artery feeding blood into my heart regardless of inefficient beats. I would likely have just sighed, shook my head in frustration, and prepared for a sub par performance, but it would not have been a tragedy. I would have been able to run up the hills, but not as fast as I thought I would.

I biked down the same stair-stepping route of smaller streets, locked my bike up, boarded the shuttle, and enjoyed the journey to the start line.

Except… the course was different. Apparently, we would not be starting at Fort Mason like we did in 2023. We started instead at the beach near a windmill. I contemplated the long run we would be making up and through Golden Gate Park instead of the “legendary hills.” A minor let-down, but hey, look where I am! And after all, hills are hills! My heart flooded with gratitude (and freshly oxygenated blood) that I had made it through the challenges of 2023 and early 2024. My faith in myself had paid off!

Off went the gun! And I realized that I was not as “in shape” as I thought I was. Oh, my heart pumped happily, sending fresh fuel and oxygen to my body in copious amounts, but even four months post surgery I knew I wouldn’t be setting any PR’s that day. But it didn’t matter. I remembered each section of the park that I had struggled through the previous year as I ran through it: That gorgeous S-turn the path made as it wound its way around a lake and through the trees, into a pedestrian tunnel. The Museum of Flowers. The entrance into the Haight District. And the Haight District itself! All the memories that flooded back to me, of the struggles and disappointment and anger I felt blossomed into gratitude: for the chance to spend my days at an interesting job where my skills are valued, the salary I’m able to make to enable me to get out of LA and travel to interesting places, and to a health care system, while certainly filled with flaws, absolutely saw me through a serious heart crisis by getting a fully blocked artery up and functioning again. For having the courage to make dietary changes in my life to keep my heart opened and functioning so I could run.

Because of all that, running across the finish line this year was a different experience than I had last year, and it included a 40 minute faster finish.

(Of course, nothing’s perfect: turns out the “City Half Marathon” measures only 12.5 miles instead of 13.1, meaning my 2:15 finish doesn’t quite count; a 2:20 finish would probably be what I would have gotten without that particular snafu. But that’s ok! Nothing but gratitude here!)

I grabbed some snacks, staggered over to where my bike was parked, and carefully pedaled my way back up to the motel, where I took a long shower and planned out the rest of my journey: a good lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant and a trip to a campground near Yosemite where I could pitch a tent and enjoy a long, cool night up in the pines before heading home…. wait: where is my sleeping bag? You mean — I left my sleeping bag at home? Aw, shit!(*)

(*) I had a spare blanket, but still… The Sierra Nevadas make their own weather regardless of season.