Hayes Street, is in one word, exhausting.  It is five blocks of increasing steepness (11.15% grade at its steepest), and is considered to be one of the most daunting hills in all U.S. races, according to Runner’s World.

I can attest to just how exhausting this .67 mile incline is.  Coming up to the hill, all you can see is a sea of colors  making their way up, up, up.  Runners train in preparation for this infamous hill.

This year, at the 102nd Annual Bay-to-Breakers footrace, I looked over at my dad, running next to me, looked up at the quickly approaching hill, and shrugged.  We were almost two miles into the run, just barely sweating, hardly fatigued, and we were about to go up, up, up, with the rest of the sea of runners in front, behind, and next to us.

My dad and I have run 7.46 miles together for two years in a row together now.  We don’t dress in costume, or get naked, or drink in the street after.  All we do is run.  Well, and observe.  But, that’s a given.  There is a lot to observe.

This year was an important race, not just for me and my pops.  This year, the Boston bombings were just over a month before the May 19th race.  It shook the runner’s world.  I took it personally, and I hardly consider myself a runner.  When you train for the race, you have enough to worry about without the threat of a bomb going off at the finish line.  My sister called from Spain before our race because she was worried about a repeat.

As I jogged through the streets of the city just across the bay from my own, I saw countless people wearing shirts with some sort of Boston commemoration to the victims.  My heart, like the runner’s shirt pledged in front of me, also went out to those in Boston. Security was increased, but just hardly, at least to those who didn’t know what to look for.  The only thing I noticed was before the race even started.  My dad and I had different bib colors (meaning we were in different corrals, so our projected finish times would be different) and race officials wouldn’t let us in to the same start areas.  We had to convince a very kind volunteer to let our very adorable father-daughter duo stick together.  But, aside from the initial screening, the race pretty much went on as it had in past years—joyful and celebratory.

Even the publicly nude were free to enjoy themselves.

A 12K is a long run.  Even with adequate training, which I never have, it is not a walk in the park.  I ran this year at what I lovingly refer to as Dad Pace—a solid and unwavering 11 and a half minute mile pace.  By the time I ran under the FINISH sign on the road not 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean, I was beat.  Even the guy who finished first, Tolossa Gedefa, with a finish time of 35:01 (that breaks down to a four minute, 42 second pace) was sweating in the picture of him breaking the tape.

But the course itself is enjoyable.  It starts in the financial district, and cuts through the city, giving participants a great view of local businesses, beautiful houses, and locals the chance to observe from porches and kitchen windows.

My dad and I know, though, once you get into Golden Gate Park we are in the home stretch.  Almost exactly half way to the finish line, the worst is over.  The trees cover the course, and in the shade, it’s cooler.

The last half of any race is the best.  Everybody who is going to run the whole thing is running at this point.  There is just a sense of togetherness—it is that feeling for me that makes me run races in general, as opposed to just running by myself.  It is that feeling of camaraderie, the mutual feeling of exhaustion, but knowing if you just push a little further, the end is so close.  If you look around, everyone is suffering a little bit, but in the best way.  It is this feeling that put my heart in Boston a month ago.  I know how those people were feeling as they neared the finish line, thinking that the suffering was so near to ending, and that feeling of accomplishment would soon set in.

The last two miles, I picked it up, leaving my dad to finish the race solo.  My shins and knees just couldn’t handle the slower pace; too many footfalls.  I would meet him at the end.  Those last two miles fly.  It is partially downhill, and shaded.

There are two sharp turns through the park, one last straight stretch, and then the trees stop, and then, finally, what we have all worked toward—the breakers.