Seattle Rock N Roll 1/2 Marathon: My time: 2:52:19 Official Time: 2:58:19 Those 6 minutes were spent peeing. LOL.What a blast! Never had so much fun in a race ever! It was utterly mobbed! I had to walk the 2 miles just to get to the start. Great warm-up however!
As much as I complained about this race I was so excited to compete in it. I did love the fact of running one way and a 1st I hated the logistics of it, but I paid money to enter this and at 1st it was a complete disruption to me to toy with getting to and fro. In the end it all worked out just fine.
I had originally planned to be in corral #33, on expo day I changed that to #22. Come race day I found myself in Corral #11 with my friend Leslie. I just so happened to see her on my way to corral #22!! Worked out perfectly.
Mile 1-5: I could hear the 1st band and thought "This is awesome" then about 5 minutes later I could hear the 2nd and thought am I running THAT fast? Looked at my garmin and nope, sure enough it was only 1.5 miles!!!!! Mile2 another band, mile 2.5 ANOTHER band! Wait, how many bands are there!????? It was just fantastic. My face was beaming!!!! I hit the 5K mark much slower that I wanted to but I knew if I ran any faster I'd be dead by the time I got half way. I felt pretty good during those 1st 5 miles, my breathing and stepping was just fine.
Mile 6-10 Lake Washington Blvd was eerily quiet, all you hear was the clatter of discarded "CYTOMAX!!" (Gonna give me nightmares for months that will!) and water cups and the patter of 1,000's of feet. Around mile 5.5ish there he sat in all his glory on the lowest branch of a tree. A bald eagle. I'm sure he was there to cheer everyone on. He just stared at us in disbelief and probably wondered what the hell we we're all doing. I saw him again just @ The I-90 bridge exit, flying low over the water looking for noms. Mile 9 my hips really started to hurt me some. I kept thinking "crap,crap, crap and crap". I really didn't do many long runs and it started to show. I also didn't do my promised yoga nor stretches, so what else should I expect. There were only TWO bands and 1 DJ - who hadn't even set up yet, so that was a little disappointing.
Mile 10-13.1 Always the toughest. Brought us into the I-90 Express Lane tunnel. Oh gawd! You couldn't breathe and to make matters just slightly worse there was a band at the other end that ricochet off the entire tunnel wall. It was incredibly loud, to add to that people started cheering that seemed to come in a wave from one end to the other! At the other side we could all see QWest Field and that seemed to perk everyone up a bit. The run down to 4th avenue was downhill which was nice but it made everything on me bounce and I could start to feel my chest hurting. Maybe I wore the wrong bra today? Shite. The last 3 miles were the longest I've ever ran! Parallel to QWest Field and through Downtown a little ways, uphill then onto the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the bottom part of it, which really is never fun. What if "The big one" hits right now? We are all squished! Would I still get my medal? Now I could feel my left knee hurting. It hurt more to walk so I kept running. Slowly, slowly. Until I could see where we turned to get into the Stadium. At least I THOUGHT we were going into the stadium! Isn't that what it said on the website? Oh well. I picked up the pace for the last .13 miles and triumphantly crossed the finish line in 2:56! An behind Leslie but faster than the old me in Vancouver :) 13.1 number 3 in the bag for Lynne!
Right away I could feel a strange tingling sensation in my fingers that I did not like one bit so I headed to the meds tent where they made me lay down, elevate my feet and iced my knee. They also gave me some salt. I laid there for about 10 minutes just chatting. I sat up, I felt better! I had to get the bus home so I jumped on the 1st one that took to me into town and wandered for about 15 minutes just to calm my legs down. This I would later find out would be a BIG help for me. Got a bus really easily and another to the top of my hill. Decided I wanted Pho and I wanted it now. So got that and headed home. Ate the pho and napped till my heart was content.
I'm sad I didn't bring my camera to this as I would have gotten some amazing shots! Next year though! :)
As much as I complained about this race I was so excited to compete in it. I did love the fact of running one way and a 1st I hated the logistics of it, but I paid money to enter this and at 1st it was a complete disruption to me to toy with getting to and fro. In the end it all worked out just fine.
I had originally planned to be in corral #33, on expo day I changed that to #22. Come race day I found myself in Corral #11 with my friend Leslie. I just so happened to see her on my way to corral #22!! Worked out perfectly.
Mile 1-5: I could hear the 1st band and thought "This is awesome" then about 5 minutes later I could hear the 2nd and thought am I running THAT fast? Looked at my garmin and nope, sure enough it was only 1.5 miles!!!!! Mile2 another band, mile 2.5 ANOTHER band! Wait, how many bands are there!????? It was just fantastic. My face was beaming!!!! I hit the 5K mark much slower that I wanted to but I knew if I ran any faster I'd be dead by the time I got half way. I felt pretty good during those 1st 5 miles, my breathing and stepping was just fine.
Mile 6-10 Lake Washington Blvd was eerily quiet, all you hear was the clatter of discarded "CYTOMAX!!" (Gonna give me nightmares for months that will!) and water cups and the patter of 1,000's of feet. Around mile 5.5ish there he sat in all his glory on the lowest branch of a tree. A bald eagle. I'm sure he was there to cheer everyone on. He just stared at us in disbelief and probably wondered what the hell we we're all doing. I saw him again just @ The I-90 bridge exit, flying low over the water looking for noms. Mile 9 my hips really started to hurt me some. I kept thinking "crap,crap, crap and crap". I really didn't do many long runs and it started to show. I also didn't do my promised yoga nor stretches, so what else should I expect. There were only TWO bands and 1 DJ - who hadn't even set up yet, so that was a little disappointing.
Mile 10-13.1 Always the toughest. Brought us into the I-90 Express Lane tunnel. Oh gawd! You couldn't breathe and to make matters just slightly worse there was a band at the other end that ricochet off the entire tunnel wall. It was incredibly loud, to add to that people started cheering that seemed to come in a wave from one end to the other! At the other side we could all see QWest Field and that seemed to perk everyone up a bit. The run down to 4th avenue was downhill which was nice but it made everything on me bounce and I could start to feel my chest hurting. Maybe I wore the wrong bra today? Shite. The last 3 miles were the longest I've ever ran! Parallel to QWest Field and through Downtown a little ways, uphill then onto the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the bottom part of it, which really is never fun. What if "The big one" hits right now? We are all squished! Would I still get my medal? Now I could feel my left knee hurting. It hurt more to walk so I kept running. Slowly, slowly. Until I could see where we turned to get into the Stadium. At least I THOUGHT we were going into the stadium! Isn't that what it said on the website? Oh well. I picked up the pace for the last .13 miles and triumphantly crossed the finish line in 2:56! An behind Leslie but faster than the old me in Vancouver :) 13.1 number 3 in the bag for Lynne!
Right away I could feel a strange tingling sensation in my fingers that I did not like one bit so I headed to the meds tent where they made me lay down, elevate my feet and iced my knee. They also gave me some salt. I laid there for about 10 minutes just chatting. I sat up, I felt better! I had to get the bus home so I jumped on the 1st one that took to me into town and wandered for about 15 minutes just to calm my legs down. This I would later find out would be a BIG help for me. Got a bus really easily and another to the top of my hill. Decided I wanted Pho and I wanted it now. So got that and headed home. Ate the pho and napped till my heart was content.
I'm sad I didn't bring my camera to this as I would have gotten some amazing shots! Next year though! :)
1 comment:
My hips were hurting around mile 9 as well.
And I thought I was the only one that HATED that stupid band in the tunnel; WHAT were they thinking with that one?
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