San Francisco Half Marathon

yesterday was great. The overall experience was pleasant and i had fun.
in short, it was nothing like my last half marathon where it was COLD and RAINY and i was pretty sure i was going to die at about mile 11.
but back to the good stuff.
I woke up at 4 am, had breakfast (even though my body was really confused about eating at 4 am without being super-drunk), got dressed and was out of the house by 5. five in the morning might be the only time when there is no traffic on the 101 or through downtown. so, i got to the embarcadero by 5:15. Due to the high number of people and to avoid bottlenecks through the race, they assign people to waves based on their estimated finish times. clearly, i was in the last wave and did not start until 6:20.
the weather was perfect for the run and was one of the few times i was not complaining about the fact that SF has had a cold summer.
the first 5 miles were surprisingly easy. i was just singing along to my ipod and smiling. (so my pictures wont look like im crying this time)
miles 6-10 were an out and back on the golden gate and went by so quickly bc i was distracted by the scenary.
the SF Marathon provides professional pacers (people who can run at a specific pace for hours straight... i like to think of them as robots) and i ran with the 12:30 min/mile pacer all the way until mile 11 where the hills began.
these are not slight inclines, they are more like mountains, and i just saw the pacer get farther and farther ahead of me as we were running up the first one. the running turned into shuffling and then walking as my knee started to feel the pressure.
but other than that obstacle, the rest was great. i came in at 2 hours and 48 mins (12:48 min/mile pace) and was pretty happy since that was about 47 seconds/mile faster than the last half marathon in February.
I am actually super-exited for the San Jose Rock N Roll Half Marathon on October 5th. San Jose is FLAT and i have a good 2 months of training left until then. so, my goal is to keep the 12:30 pace the whole time and come in at about 2:44.
as for how i felt today, my hamstrings are sore from the damn hills, but i feel physically fine otherwise. (i also havent been able to stop eating since i stopped running yesterday. hoping that will go away soon, cause its kinda ridiculous. )

Thats all for the update here. i will post pics in a few days when they are up.

To see the course map, click on the "first half marathon map" on the link below
http://www.runsfm.com/events/maps.html