How do you come up with the idea to run a 1/2 Marathon after having picked up a little bit of running for a couple of months in order to get back in some sort of shape?

Well, for those of you who know me it doesn't take much....in this case having lunch with a colleague was more then enough.
The conversation went something like this:

"So Mikael, are you still running"
"Yeah, I try to get out a couple of times a week, it feels pretty good, I usually run something like 4-5 miles"
"The San Francisco Marathon is in a week and a half, do you want to run the 1/2 Marathon together?"
"Sounds like fun, is there a website or something?"
(after all I need to at least figure out how long a 1/2 Marathon is....)
"Sure, http://runsfm.com "

And that was pretty much it, the next day I had signed up (I can reveal that google educated me that 1/2 a Marathon is 13.1miles or 21.1km)

A couple of days later (the weekend before the race) I went out for the longest run since -98, 9miles (15k), felt actually pretty good - now I felt good, another 4 miles (6k) shouldn't be a problem.
And after all, all I wanted to do was to participate and finish.....So the Sanfrancisco Marathon, which by the way is ranked one of the nicest (but toughest) Marathons starts, for some reason that I can't figure out, between 5 and 6am in the morning. I mean it can't be to beat the heat since the summer in the city provides perfect running weather all day (low 60's or around 15 degrees).
This means getting up well before the rooster gets up ( direct translation of a Swedish expression), and yes, my colleagues still have a hard time figuring out my directly translated "sayings" (talking about the troll/när man pratar om trollen, he who lives will see/den som lever får se etc.), so I got a hotel room a couple of blocks from the start and headed in to the city late Saturday night.

2 alarm clocks and a wake up call all went off at pretty much the same time the next morning - at 4am, wow that's early.
A couple of cups of coffee, a banana, some Gatorade and a couple of power bars later I was ready to head down to meet my colleague at the starting line. I must have picked a way, from my hotel, different from anyone else with the same agenda for the day because the only company I saw on my way down from the Marriott on 2nd street was people living on the street, having just waked up. "Ya have a dime to spare?" - "Yeah, sure, let me see, no sorry, didn't bring any dimes to the Marathon...."Anyway, we got off to a great start catching the tail end of group (or wave as the call it) 3, setting the pace just around 5:15min/km (or 8:30min/mile)Wow, what a feeling running along embarcadero, Fisherman's Warf, the Marina towards the Golden gate bridge with thousands and thousands of people. Truly inspiring, the first 8km (5miles) felt like they just flew by - "great, now I'm warmed up, this feels great"
Take a look here to see a map of the race.The first part of the course is pretty flat and I was making really good time but right before the 5mile (8k) marker it was time to start a pretty long climb, from sea level up and over the Golden Gate bridge. It's about a 80meter elevation in a little over a mile (1.6k), now I can really start feeling my legs but I still feel pretty good even though the pace has dropped significantly.

Here I'm just about half way into the race at about 6miles (10k), 54min on the clock and feeling really strong

They had closed off all but 2 lanes on the bridge, it was a great feeling to run across and then back.
When I got back to the bottom of the bridge (on the San Francisco side) my GPS showed 15k (9miles) at just over 1hour 20min - wow, I'm flying (everything is relative but for me this was much better then expected), but that's when the really tough part of the race started for me.
The next 2miles (3k) was basically a very long uphill portion followed by a very long downhill one.
At 11 miles (18k) I was starting to feel a little beat for the first time, I was starting to quickly eat into the time buffer I had worked up (my goal was to finish in under 2 hours).

The last 2miles (3k) was pretty much just uphill and now I'm really having to dig deep to keep the tempo at a reasonable pace. We were zig-zagging up and down streets near the Golden Gate park and every corner I turned I wished for flat or downhill - that didn't happen though...

By sprinting all out the last 200meters I just made it under 1:55, or 1hour 54min 50sec. to be more precise.
Very happy with the race, a great experience.
Hoping to go the full length next year......