Goal: fun & easy.
Splits: 5K 33:39, 10K 1:07, half 2:20, 30K 3:18, 40K 4:19
Weather: Low 50s, rising into low to mid 70s, sunny & clear
Number 18 in the bag! It was a rockin and a rollin, but more like an ocean liner than Duane Allman’s fingers on a fret board.... slow! Executive summary - a great experience overall, though I did not handle the rising temperatures well. I did not see Elvis. And I was so sure he’d be there.
I’ll get the whining out of the way right off the bat, then the raves, and then a little blow-by-blow. First, the whining...
This is a very hilly course. From the first little rise at mile 1.6 to the last seemingly gruesome climb at 25 (what hill is minor at that point?), there are a lot of hills. Many of them were gentle or short, and there were certainly long stretches of flat running, but the hills were formidable. I greatly pity the runners who had no hill training.
It’s just pathetic, I know, but I got so hot once we were out on the I-90 floating bridge. And I never really cooled off after that. It’s about 1.5 miles over the bridge and back; on the way out there was a slight breeze, and Mt. Rainier was out, and I was still in my happy place. But when I turned back, out of the breeze, I started to feel my face flushing and all I wanted was to reach the shade of the tunnel ahead.
The tunnel. Ok. This just should not be legal. We rejoined the half-marathoners as we entered the tunnel and within 15 seconds the roar of sound was unbearable. People were screaming, whooping, and the band at the far end was cranked up with their speakers pointed down towards the other end. I didn’t really know where the roar was coming from; the Mt. Baker tunnel (seen in this picture as the freeway disappears into the landscape for a bit) is a little over a half mile long and it wasn’t until I was right on top of the band that I realized they were there. I was just trying to keep my head down and get through there as quickly as I could. And - it wasn’t much cooler inside the tunnel than out.
Shortly after the tunnel we were all funneled into a narrower lane of traffic and there seemed to be 1 marathoner for every 15-20 half-ers, most of whom seemed to be struggling through their last 2 miles. Dodge, weave, dodge, weave. I never thought I’d be faced with that kind of running at mile 13! (Our mileage was higher than theirs because we marathoners had an out and back on the bridge.)
Let’s see. What else can I complain about? The road surface was really rough in places when we were on the freeway. I had to get up at 2:50 AM to get into Seattle for the shuttle buses. And if it’s warm enough for no sleeves who wants to wear a black? (The race t-shirt.) Glad I didn’t have mine on for the race!
Now for the praises...
The race organization was excellent! Those Rock n Roll people really know what they are doing!
I surprised myself by liking most of the bands! Because of my age and my musical tastes, I didn’t think I would enjoy most of the music. In mile 3, when we all ran past a band singing the Beatles’ “Come together,” everyone started singing along. Excellent fun! I did have to listen to “Too Many Puppies” twice. Even one Too Many Puppies is too many Too Many Puppies in my book. Ah, but I was done whining, wasn’t I?
When the course was pretty, it was incredibly pretty! The first few miles are pretty trashy, but then we got views of some lovely neighborhoods, Lake Washington (complete with bald eagle overhead), Mt. Rainier, Elliot Bay and Lake Union. Anyone visiting from out of town really got to see the best of Seattle today. For their sakes, I was happy for the clear skies. Sunshine -- most people do seem to enjoy that sort of thing.
The volunteers, support crew and the crowds were all really nice. I ran my marathon so slowly and the enthusiasm isn’t usually that good after 4 hours. Maybe they were all happy about that sunshine stuff.
Spending time with AuntieEm, fellow blogger and my friend from Ravelry.com (and with whom I’ve run 3 races now) was delightful!
Ok, a little overview of my race and I’ll sign off. (Warning, Contains material of a disgusting nature.)
Because I am so anxiety prone, and because I couldn’t see how they would ferry 25,000 runners to Tukwila with only 400 buses, I had told my lovely house guest, AuntieEm, that I would have to be on an early bus. We left the house about 3:30 and about an hour later we were shivering safely in the Start Village. With nearly 3 hours to wait. (Forgot to whine about that.) Though the race began at 7, my corral did not take off until a little after 7:25. I shed my thrift-store sweat shirt at the first water station.
By mile 6 we were along Lake Washington and everything was Feeling Groovy. (I didn’t hear that song, but it would have been nice.) This is the best part of the course, in my opinion. With the trees and the lake, it is just lovely. I could tell even here that things were warming up, but I still felt great and hoped for the best.
I think it was sometime around mile 10 or 11 that the marathoners split off to run over the I-90 floating bridge and back. See section 1, Whining, for details.
The half marathoners left us for their finish line sometime during our 14th or 15th mile. Sorry for the vagueness; after spending a half mile in the tunnel, I gave up on any kind of Garmin Gazing, and the mile markers were kind of small (read, I wasn’t paying attention). This is not a good race for people who like their Garmins to guide them. First is the aforementioned tunnel. Then when we parted from the half-ers we ran for a long time on the bottom deck of the viaduct, and a little later there were 2 passes through the Battery Street tunnel. In spite of all these periods of gps no-mans-land, my Garmin read 26.52 at the finish! Sigh. Maybe it just freaked out on me, but I know I ran a lot of extra steps -- there was almost no way to cut the tangents when we were packed together, and there was at least a mile of dart-and-dodge at mile 13 (see above).
Once one is away from Elliot Bay, there is very little scenery to speak of until the mile 19 turnaround at the Aurora Bridge. Leading up to this bridge, we climb and climb for what seemed like a couple of miles -- on the least shady side of the street. Feeling too warm became feeling hot and for me that means - Nausea and GI distress. :( At the turnaround I spent about 5 minutes in a Honey Bucket, unfortunately heating up even more. Maybe I’ll just skip this part.
When we got back over the bridge we got to run downhill on the shadier side of Hwy 99 - ah! I was feeling a bit better now. Back through the Battery Street tunnel and past beautiful Elliot Bay, with the ferries streaming out over the Sound.
If I were designing this course, I would have taken everyone around the lovely, wooded Seward Park at ~ mile 6 and eliminated the last little bit. We had to run past the finish area and down to the West Seattle bridge entrance, make another hairpin turnaround, and run back. Just 3 miles, but it felt like forever. My nausea returned and all I could think of that last mile was how embarrassing it would be if I puked. The crowds from mile 26 to the finish are thick and loud. But I made it ok.
It took me about 25 minutes to walk to my car, my legs were so shot. Now that I’ve had a nap and some Ibuprofen, I am feeling much better, and we’re off to Mexican food in a few minutes. I will conclude that I hope to remember this experience forever, the fun and beauty of it but also the feeling of being too warm -- I do not want to run any more summer marathons! Even the “cool” ones in June are just not good for this cloud lover.
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