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Seattle Marathon - RunMarathon


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Seattle, Washington
United States
40F / 4C
Sunny
Total Time = 4h 26m 30s
Overall Rank = 890/1236
Age Group = 45-49
Age Group Rank = 0/
Pre-race routine:

Drove down to Seattle the day before to avoid any stress and early morning problems. So we got checked into hotel, got food and watched tv. Wife fell asleep,but than I started to hear loud music coming from the vents. We were over one of the reception rooms that was celebrating some 16 year old girls birthday. So for the next 3 hours heard hip hop crappy rap and a DJ dork. Finally got to sleep around midnight when it all went quiet.
Bed was hard. Lots of tossing and turning.

Felt ok on wakeup around 6. Ate two Baker Breakfast cookies and had coffee. and a banana.
Watched the Walkers and Half Mary start from the window. That was the nice thing about the hotel.
Event warmup:

Got over to the start area, got some pictures, hit the porta potties one last time. Seemed to be that there were fewer people for the marathon than last year...Would like to see if that is so.

Had done a little stretching in the hotel.
Run
  • 4h 26m 30s
  • 26.2 miles
  • 10m 10s  min/mile
Comments:

Seeded myself between the 4 hour and 4:45 pace groups. First time I'd seen pace groups in three years. The numbers did seem to be smaller than last year (?) Only took me about a minute to hit the pad with the official timer.

Took it easy and tried to warm up slowly in the first two miles. Followed a guy with a sign on his back that said "Kidney Donor, 1 July 2007" that was cool. He left me around the 4 mile mark.

I was carrying a 20 oz water bottle full of Accelerade drink, so I was able to skip the first couple of water stations (every two miles). Weather was cool and clear so drinking wasn't to much of a concern. And the first water stations are always a zoo, plus they had walkers doing the event at the same time.

Got on the I-90 freeway and tried to establish a steady pace, going through the tunnel, got a little warm from the shelter. As soon as we got on the bridge the wind chilled the body. Also saw a guy catch his foot on a bolt and nut on the shoulder of the freeway, did the tumble and roll. You get to see the leaders on this part of the out and back, everybody always cheers the leaders and others do High 5s with friends or teammates. Once I made it to 6 (55:05)an the turn around, get to see how many runners you are ahead of. Never saw the Pace groups or the standards that they held?

From miles 8 to 12 where you enter Seward Park (again doing an outand back to see leaders) kept the steady pace, Ran with Steven Yee (Co-founder of Marathon Maniacs) and once in the park, saw an empty Portapotti and used it quickly. Hit the 13.1 point at 2:03, so I really felt good, although I had to keep myself focused on the current miles, not About Galer street and the hills later on.

From the park to around mile 18, Kept the focus on keeping pace, running form and not getting into a slow down shuffle. Had also started to drink water and gatorade plus gels (ate 3 out of 4 for the day). Was usually running alone, but every once and awhile a group of 4-5 would pass me,? where did they come from and where did they get the energy?? (they were always younger people)

Amazing to see people running with full fuel belts, camelback and over dressed with their $100+ sweatsuits, can hear them coming and going with their zwip zwip zwip of running vinal. Passed a granny (doing the marathon walk) who had a sign on her back that said "This is my 40th Marathon, how about you?"

Had a bunch of people talk about my tattoo and what IM I had done, and one guy said he was signed up for IMCDA 08, also met a girl around mile 24 that had done IM FLA.

Finally got to the hill sections around miles 19, and ran up most of Galer Street, Had some orange slice on the downhill portion before the Aboretium.
Started to realize I was on a good finish time, focus when to never stopping and running hills, no walking. Kept up the mantra, of I've done trail running and hills in training, keep going.

Last 2-3 miles are down hillish crossing over the Interstate and into the city. At around the 23 mile mark, knew that I had about 40 minutes to do 3 miles and better my best time. At 24.5 they had a cool aid station with loud music, got a cup of water and was looking for the pretzels (why do they wait till the race is almost done to give out pretzels?) pretzel person was at the end, so I didn't have enough water to choke more than one down. So I was spitting pretzel chunks out of my teeth for next half mile.
Mile 25 is down steep Republican street. Always throw out a chuckle about this stretch to other runners, downhill, but it hurts the thighs so bad and I can't go fast or my knees might buckle and end up rolling down. Make the final turn right before 26miles and do the last little down and up under the overpass. Kept checking for sounds of runners behind me, didn't want to screw up finish photo. Hit the football field and realized the gal in front of me was dying so swept around her, saw the wife (think she got a picture of my shoulder) and remembered to not fuss with watch at the finish, keep head up and smile.

Went into the Seattle center recovery area expecting IVAR's Clam Chowder and other goodies....They had some band playing loud music, saw some guy ladling chicken broth (actually some kind of spicy pea and carrot broth) grabbed a chocolate milk at the next booth (passed on the yogurt) and passed the organic fruit. Walked over to the coffee/hot chocolate stand, got a chocolate, shared with wife and realized there was no other food stands....No muffins, no bread, no bagels no krispy creme, no bananas or oranges...nothing, found some Talking rain water (big deal) Scratched my head about what happened to all the post race stuff, compared to Last year this was suck city.




What would you do differently?:

Always comes back to weight for me. Think I was around 215-216. Also I missed doing one final 15 mile run about 2 weeks back.

I'm happy with the consistent pace though, think some of the training did help with that.

The core crunches and pushups that I have been doing I believed helped out alot during the race. Felt stronger somewhat.

Must force myself to drop some weight before the next marathon at the end of December.
Post race
Warm down:

Walked out of the skimpy pathetic recovery area and back to the hotel. Got to the room and the key card wouldn't work. Had to go back down to front desk and the counter girl says, checkout was at 11:00 and they did a courtesy checkout for runners at 1200. So they changed the codes. Well I said, "I'm sorry that I'm a slow runner, but I need to get into my room". She asked how long I was going to be in the room, like I was an inconveince. Needed 10 minutes to shower and change. Lucky for her I was still in my Marathon Pain High or I would have blasted her about the music from the night before and the lousy food that the restaurant served.


What limited your ability to perform faster:

Weight and Age. Also should have taken only a 12 ounce bottle. My DeSoto shorts did rub my crotch some.

Event comments:

Not sure what happened to the post race event. Pretty substandard. Other wise the race was good, weather good. Having done the race 3 times now plus a Half Mary back in 03. Know the course pretty well and how to prepare for the different sections.

I would recommend it and will probably put it on the calendar for next year unless something else better comes up.

Even the Athletes Lounge that is doing the results is slow putting up the data..

Final thought, looked back at the 2003 HalfMarathon that I ran (when I was starting out) I ran that in 2:06. So I'm very happy with my split on Sunday and overall time.




Last updated: 2007-10-24 12:00 AM
Running
04:26:30 | 26.2 miles | 10m 10s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/
Overall: 0/1236
Performance: Good
17:49 for the first two miles. 9:21 (mile 3) 9:16 (4 M.) 18:34 (5-6 M), I was at 55.01 for six miles, which made me happy. 9:25 for mile 7, 9:34 mile 8, 9:23 mile 9, 9:15 mile 10, 9:46 mile 11, 9:34 mile 12, 9:55 mile 13. The clock on the course said I did the half mary in around 2:03 (happy with that ) 9:48 for mile 14, 9:47 for mile 15, 10:26 for mile 16, 10:02 mile 17, 10:39 mile 18, 10:18 mile 19, 11:30 mile 20, 12:12 mile 21 (uphill) 11:46 mile 22, 11:05 mile 23, 11:55 mile 24, 11:33 mile 25, 13:29 for mile 26.2 (down hill on republican street just kills the legs, did finish strong on the football field.
Course: Street, Interstate, all paved. First 19 miles fairly flat, Miles 20-23 are up hill with downhills.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Good
Mental exertion [1-5] 4
Physical exertion [1-5] 4
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Below average
Race evaluation [1-5] 3

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2007-11-26 3:44 PM

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Champion
6931
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Bellingham, Washington
Subject: Seattle Marathon


2007-11-27 1:50 AM
in reply to: #1068708

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Extreme Veteran
303
100100100
Champaign, Illinois
Subject: RE: Seattle Marathon

Excellent report... like always.  Congratulations on a great race.  Can't wait to read about the next one!

 

2007-11-27 12:12 PM
in reply to: #1068708

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Extreme Veteran
487
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Spokane, WA
Subject: RE: Seattle Marathon

Nice job Spence. Great job knocking out a PR!

Bummer about the post-race lack of goodies...

2007-11-29 4:07 PM
in reply to: #1068708

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Member
24

Seattle, WA
Subject: RE: Seattle Marathon

nice job on the PB!!!!

 

2007-11-30 12:08 PM
in reply to: #1068708

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Expert
1535
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Coeur D'alene, ID
Subject: RE: Seattle Marathon
Excellent race Spence!  Congrats on your PR!
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