Monday, February 18, 2008

Chinese New Year Run

Yesterday we ran the Chinese New Year 5k/10K Run in San Francisco. Our friend, Juliana, organized a group of folks to run or walk the 5K. We got up really early to get up to the city by 7:00 AM. The upside of getting there early: no traffic and *FREE* street parking. I've never found free street parking in San Francisco, especially around SF Chinatown.

The run was pretty low-key. There were actually a lot more people than we expected. Apparently, this is the 30th annual run. The funniest thing about the run were the handful of Chinese grandmas who would cross the streets that the runners were on. They just shuffled right in front of everyone with no fear of being run over or bumped into. I wonder if something happens to Asian women who get past a certain age that gives them this fearlessness (or stupidity according to Greg).

We had heard that they gave each runner warm pork buns (the baked kind) after the finish line. So, that was pretty good motivation to run faster and get to the finish line. You can imagine how disappointed Greg was when we crossed the finish line and made our way up to Portsmouth Square to find that there were no pork buns. Only water, bananas, oranges and yogurt in tubes. Good thing we were planning to grab breakfast after everyone finished! Our yummy breakfast at Squat & Gobble more than made up for the lack of pork buns.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is that a hilly run! That sounds like something I'd be interested in doing. SF Chinatown!

Oh wait. I remember walking those streets, it was REALLY hilly...

Anonymous said...

Cindy - No, the run wasn't very hilly at all. There were only 2 small hills. I wouldn't have done the run, if the course was incredibly hilly. You would've been fine. =)