Cat and Shanmao's blog

After waiting 15 weeks, I called up the passport office to find out the status of my application. They told me it had been rejected and returned July 23. I was calling in early August. Looks like DHL hadn't sent a notice but dropped off the package at my apartment office.

Turns out my photo was not up to scratch. There was a very small shadow on the wall behind me just below my left ear. Interestingly, the instructions mentioned only shadows on the face. No more Walgreen's and Long's (drugstore chains) passport photos for me.

I read about the Palo Alto photography store Keeble and Shuchat and heard that Canadians at Stanford and elsewhere in the bay area have had good results there. They are much more professional with a studio for photos with proper lighting.

Filled out the forms again, got an optometrist to guarantee them but just as I was about to send this out Gui doublechecked things and noticed optometrist is not on the list if you're renewing from the US. I had looked at both the Canadian resident and US resident forms and obviously got confused and overlooked this.

Just this morning went to my dentist to ask him to guarantee the photo, again.

This time I'm sending the application to my brother-in-law's mother in Ottawa who will go to the passport office and get pre-approval for the photos. Better to know right away if they're ok rather than wait the 10-15 weeks that is the norm for Canadian US residents.

My current passport expires August 29 so that means that if I want to re-enter the US I have to do so by land. Air travel re-entry requires a passport. In January 2008, this will change as well. Land entry will require a passport. So the clock is ticking.

Advice to all of you renewing a passport, look at your upcoming travel dates carefully and work out a plan.

A week ago early on Sunday July 29th I ran the 1st half of the San Francisco Marathon.

This was my first experience in a race longer than 12k and the furthest I've run in one session. I've been running regularly this year thanks to the new orthotics I was fitted for that have helped me with soreness that I used to experience. A co-worker mentioned that he had signed up for the 1st half of the SF marathon so I decided to do so as well. You have the option to run the 1st half or the 2nd half, or if you want to do the entire marathon you can do that instead. Rather than jumping into the exhausting, painful, and potentially injurious full marathon I chose to dip my toes in first with something more manageable.

Gui and I stayed over at Jean and Mi's place on Saturday night since I had to get up early for the race on Sunday morning. In fact quite early. My wave, wave 3 of 6 waves, started at 5:35 AM. To help runners to be grouped so that you start off with people running a similar pace, the entire field of runners was divided into waves. On your application you declare your expected finish time and calculate your wave. Since I thought finishing between 1 hour 45 min and 2 hours was reasonable I chose wave 3.

I picked my race packet up on Saturday at the fair that was taking place at the race start area near Embarcadero in San Francisco. We ate dinner and tried to get to bed early. Gui planned to wake up to meet me at the finish line.

My alarm clock went off at 4:30 am and I got out of bed quickly grabbed a bite to eat , put on my race clothes and an extra windbreaker and headed out to the nearby bus stop. It was a windy and chilly San Francisco night and I wasn't happy about the bad weather. I was wishing that one of San Francisco's rare heat waves was in effect. Later on, I realized the cool weather was actually great, and that once you start running you forget about the weather for the most part.

The bus picked me up and a few other runners got on the same bus later. As we drove along Market Street in downtown I saw numerous runners, easily identifiable by their runnings shoes and clothing, walking along the street like some kind of bizarre nocturnal ritual. I arrived at the starting line with 10 minutes to go before my wave was set to go.


I wrapped the windbreaker around my waist since I wasn't clear on how the system to deposit bags of warmup clothing worked. It turns out that it's easy to use and I should've made use of it. You simply write you bib number on the bag you're provided, put your warmup clothes in it, throw it into a truck, which then goes to the 1st half finish line and you provide your bib to pick it up. Well, I noticed a few other runners carrying some extra baggage, and I wasn't aiming for a fast pace, so I didn't mind. Later on, due to the cloudy weather I even took off my hat and put it in my banana belt. I could have shed a fair amount of extra baggage, but I'll have to remember that lesson for next year.

As the race progressed I tried to keep pace with the runners around me or to pass them. The race provided a great convenience - pace runners. A few runners were designated as pacers (perhaps they were paid, or more likely volunteers) who planned to run a specific time. Each pacer had a stick that rose over his head with several balloons tied to it. The balloons had his expected time written on it. I found myself near the marathon 3 hour 45 min pacer every now and then and found this to be a great way to run. You don't have to worry about how fast you're going, if you're slowing down, or burning too much energy too soon. You simply make sure you can see those red and white balloons.

Sunrise was muted due to heavy cloud cover. The leadup to Golden Gate bridge was flat and followed the waterfront. I noticed several bikers amongst the volunteers who were to be found along the race course. One biker had his motorcycle placed strategically at one place to keep runners from following the wrong way at a fork.

The hill up to Golden Gate bridge was the first hill and the first major obstacle to overcome. But following the crowd and the pacer made it easier. Once up on the bridge I saw that 3 lanes were reserved for the race. 1 lane heading out across the bridge, another lane returning, and a buffer lane between the runners and the traffic. For the most part the temperature was good - the cool air cooled you down sufficiently. The one exception was one place at the far end of the bridge where the wind was quite strong and you could feel it was sucking the heat out of you. But that was only for a hundred meter stretch. Passing in the lanes on the Golden Gate bridge was basically impossible because the lanes were not that wide and there were a lot of runners. Next time, I'll make a note to enter an earlier, smaller wave (adequately prepared of course) so that I had the freedom to push it a little harder on the flat portions.

After returning from over the bridge, there was a bit of uphill then a long downhill stretch. I don't run hills that much because Foster City and Oracle are quite flat but generally like hill running (but don't like driving to locations and then running). However, I hadn't done a lot of downhill running. I found that the thing that tired out my quads the most was the downhill portion. I didn't shuffle down, I took long strides to try to use my height and naturally longer stride. Since I pay a penalty on uphill stretches (less power due to longer legs) I thought I should cash in downhill. Well, I'll have to practise that more on long downhill stretches, while taking care not to injure myself.

The course followed 26th Ave and was a great portion with a series of small up and downs, basically a block of uphill, then a block of downhill. A sign indicated that mile 12 had just passed. I tried to step on the gas a little more as the finish at 13.1 miles approached.

Into Golden Gate park, I could feel the exhaustion from the sustained effort but kept my slightly faster pace up and eventually the finish line arrived. I kept looking for Gui in the crowd at the finish line but didn't see her. On the way to the finish line I noticed that the fog was creating mist and then eventually something akin to rain. It wasn't technically raining I guess but it was the next closest thing.



I noticed several people waiting with bouquets of flowers for a loved one who was running the race, waiting for them to arrive. It seemed to be all men waiting with bouquets. At the finish line another biker, this time a woman, clipped off the timing chip on my shoe as I left the finish line. The timing chip is tied to your shoe and allows you to find your exact time from start to finish. 'Gun time' starts when the gun initially fires, but if you cross the start line long after the gun has gone then your 'chip time' will allow you to know how long you really took to run the distance.

I called Gui and found that she was walking to the finish line. I had called her as I finished the Golden Gate bridge but misjudged and hadn't given her enough time to walk over. We met on the way back to Jean's and she snapped a few pictures of me in the complimentary foil warmth preserving wrapper that they distributed at the finish line.

Back at Jean's I showered, had a nap, then we headed out for breakfast. We chose Pork Store Cafe on Haight St. which was on the marathon route. Around 10 am we arrived and observed quite a few full marathoners still running. This was probably around mile 18. I was impressed by all the runners I saw since they were obviously not the elite running crowd. These runners were going for 5 to 6 hours and were keeping themselves going by sheer willpower. Some runners were older include a few ladies who I estimated to be not much younger than my mom! There was one older man running in his bare feet! The first bare foot runner I've seen in person - amazing considering that he had to go on ashphalt all the way.

Overall a great experience. My final time was around 1 hour 47 min. Next time I'll think about aiming for 1 hour 30 min which would be quite an achievement. But perhaps not totally out of reach. SF is a hilly course (the top finisher of the 1st half was 10 minutes slower than the top winner of the 2nd half - the half I had done was more hilly), so my 1 hour 47 min might translate to a bit faster on a totally flat course. A 1 hour 40 time is a more realistic next goal and would require a mid to low 7 minute per mile pace. Conceivable but requires some preparation.

I would like to try a marathon for the experience. The length of the half suits me better now though. Training for a marathon is quite time consuming. Training for a half is much more doable with a busy work schedule and social life.