Seattle Rock N Roll Half Marathon

I finished. The 12 weeks of training are done, the final goal is accomplished.

Saturday the alarm went off at 3:15 in the morning. After shoving some oatmeal into my stomach when I wasn't hungry, my hubby and I caught the bus downtown, where we caught a shuttle bus (a school bus, I could barely get my knees in the seat it was so small) down to Tukwila. We then had about two hours to wait until the start of the race at 7. Because of the wave start, I wouldn't be starting for another HOUR after that. The weather wasn't too terrible. The sun was barely up, with cloud cover. It was probably in the 50s. There were already people everywhere, though by 7 it definitely was more difficult to walk around. I don't know an exact number, but there were at least 27,000 people running either the half or full marathon.

Almost one hour to the minute after the very first runners started, my corral (moo) was released to start the race. The tracking system they use is nice--even though all the clocks at the mile markers start with the first group, the tracker on your shoe only starts when you actually cross the finish line. We also got 5k, 10k and 9 mile splits. By the way, the guy that won the half marathon ran it in 1:04:55—he could see the finish line by the time I was starting.

The course goes from Tukwila to Qwest Field in Seattle. It was pretty easy to pick out the out-of-towners during the run. They'd start talking about the terrible uphills when I hadn't even really noticed we were going uphill. On the flip side, they thought it was great running weather, I thought it was really muggy. (But at least the sun wasn't out, and it was good running weather overall.)

There were 9 bands along the half marathon course, which was cool. There was only one boy-with-guitar (really? C'mon, we need drums, people), the rest were pretty good, I guess. You don't really hear much as you're going past. There were also probably 9 cheer squads and a ton of water stations. They also had this Cytomax energy drink stuff, which just made the road sticky when you had to run past the tables.

Best part of the race for me was running through the Mount Baker Tunnel on I-90. It was cool since I drive that everyday (seems much shorter in a car...) and also because they had a DJ in there, so the sound was booming everywhere. As a person that cranks the iPod as high as it can possibly go when running somewhere without traffic, it was nice to have it so loud nothing else could be in my head. And how fun for that guy to DJ in a freeway tunnel? He looked like he was having a blast anyway.

For some reason, I couldn't really get my head into the run. The first three miles were spent dodging people on the route (I started too far back in the corrals), and then I think it was just that there were always people everywhere. I always run by myself, and our other races weren't that big--eventually I'd pretty much be running alone. Not this time (but I should have expected this with 27,000 people signed up). Miles 7-9 weren't fun since my head wasn't in it, I couldn't relax into my pace. Then, at mile 10 I hit the wall big time. Ten miles was the most I'd ran in training, so that had something to do with it, but also I think I had burned everything in my body to burn. Other people were hitting the wall, too. Somewhere between miles 10 and 13 we had to run up an onramp. I love uphills because they kick my muscles into gear and my knees feel better. However, one woman (who I really think was loopy) started sprinting up the onramp yelling as loud as she could "it's a flat, it's a flat!" Hope she was OK ...

The worst part of the race (besides knowing how far I was from Qwest Field and thus the finish line, since I always drive through there) was that we ran past Qwest Field, up through Pioneer Square and back around to the stadium. The finish line is in sight, but we're only at mile 11 or something. That was about where I started getting passed by speed walkers. But dammit, I was going to finish jogging, even if it was a very sloooooww jog. My knees hurt, my feet hurt, my toes hurt, my ankles hurt ...

I wonder if it would have been different had I had some goo or a granola bar or something. They were taking photos at the finish line, and I was willing myself not to be crying in the photos (which now makes me laugh, but really ... there wasn't nothing left).

I got my medal, got the finisher photo taken (I REALLY wonder what that is going to look like) and chugged water, finally tried some Cytomax—I was scared to drink it during the race since I had never had it before—and ate a bagel, and felt a little better.

So yay! I did it. My overall pace was about 12:30. I had wanted to run 12-minute miles, and considering how slow I was at the end, I would guess for most of the race I was. Now I've done it once, next time won't be so bad. And there will probably be a next time since I want to qualify for the Disney World Marathon eventually.

I didn't see many costumes in the race, I'm not really sure why. Lots of T-shirts from other places: Texas, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, BC Canada. I guess all 50 states were there as well as 23 countries or something. I also had an old man blow his nose into his hand then fling the contents off to the side. Ew. Really, people. And a guy answered his phone while he was running. That was kind of funny. Running along, chatting on the phone. Lots of people also took photos while they ran, or stopped to take photos.

We did not stay for the after-race concert, but headed downtown for some food, then home, when I could finally take my shoes off and found blisters that were bigger than the toes they were on. I'm on the hunt for new running shoes.

Final time: 2:45:18.

Do I look tired? Because I was. This was around mile 11, taken by my dear hubby, who waiting like two hours for me to finish. I'm in the white hat, black shorts, gray T-shirt.

A blurry photo of the medal we got.