A Review of the San Francisco City Half

Amy Sea(HF18410, DA3652, MM15648) – Today I completed Half #184 San Francisco Half in CA. There are two different half marathon options. The first option is the bridge half and goes over the bridge where the second option is the city half and runs through Golden Gate Park and more of the city. Most people choose the bridge half but the second half starts later and has a longer time limit so I went with the second half since I didn’t want to stress about time limits and I saw Lady Gaga the night before the race so also wanted to sleep in more. However the race isn’t very strict about time limits so I’d probably be fine with either race. Overall I thought this was a good race but it has a really high price tag and is around $200 and I’m not sure it’s worth the price compared to other CA races. San Francisco is an expensive city so I get why it is expensive but there are some wonderful half marathons in Southern California such as the Beach City Series that cost about half the price. I did absolutely love visiting San Francisco and running a big city race in cool weather in the summer especially with the heat we are having in New England this year so I’m glad I came. Production was mostly good but they did run out of water at one aid station and there were some minor communication details that were unclear. Nothing that would have bothered me too much for most races but if you are going to charge around $200 for a half marathon then production should be perfect. Scenery is mostly good especially the second half of the second half where you run through Haight-Ashbury and in the city. Of course it’s San Francisco so there are hills but it wasn’t unmanageable. Overall this was a very good race but it’s one of the 3 most expensive half marathons I’ve done (the others being NYC and Disney) and I’m not sure it lived up to the cost. I would recommend it if you want to run a race in SF or looking for a cool weather race in the summer but there are equally good races for half the price in other parts of CA.

Photo and Post Credit Amy Sea