Hello everyone! 

Trey, I saw on the Fall Marathons thread and certainly can see from your log that you're gearing up for San Francisco.  As promised, I got in one of my last long runs on a lot of the course.  Check my log (map should be public), or you can see it here.  (finally got GarminConnect to work).  It's mostly the course until mile 18 or so, with some turns I missed -- on the course map there's a detour through a parking lot at Crissy Field which probably adds a quarter mile, plus my access on and off the Bridge from Lincoln was done via my own autopilot, which I think is a little different from the official route.  The principal cuts are:  two miles or so at the western end of GG Park (I already know that area well), and, then, after mile 18, I didn't swing down through the Mission and Potrero Hill.  (btw, the elevation is seriously messed up from mile 18 on.  I was on Mission through Soma, and that, of course, is flat.  I definitely didn't go up and down a 600 foot hill in mile 20.  I would have remembered that.  The last two miles down Mission kind of sucked.  It was warm (SF warm -- 68 degrees or so, boo hoo hoo ), and I had to stop at every. single. light. for cross traffic.  I don't see any way that stop and start would have effected the elevation, but . . . maybe?)

Anyway, so, my comments on the course:  Obviously the waterfront is flat, with the exception of Ft. Mason, which I think you're probably already familiar with?  A short little hump of a hill.  There is a potential for some headwind along the Marina/Crissy Field, but there wasn't much of one today.  The route up to the Bridge is via Crissy Field Ave, which is the short-and-steep approach.  If given my druthers, I usually pick the long way around which is a more gentle hill, but I didn't have any problem with the short and steeper version this morning.  It is over pretty fast.  The bridge was totally socked in with fog this morning, which is typical. 

After you come off the Bridge, I had in mind that it would be an easy run to GG Park.  Don't know why I thought that.   It's 2.5 miles, with some not insignficant elevation chages.  Oh, and a street sign that says:  "Caution:  Coyote Crossing.  Please drive carefully."  Urban wildlife at its most scrappy.  The park itself is also a lot of up and down, but it's the park, so it doesn't feel as bad to me.  Something about the scenery? Or that it's not a block by block battle?  Once you finally come out of that, at mile 19 or so of the race, it's a basically flat straightaway down Haight Street, with a whopper of a downhill down to Market Street/the Mission.  That's at mile 17 or so on my run today.  Serious downhill, two blocks worth.  Then my course deviated from the marathon course, so I can't fill in any more. 

I hope your training is going well!  I'm feeling really good and very anxious to run this race!