Hot, hilly and great views!!!

Sunday was the Seafair Marathon and Half Marathon. The day started off with temps in the high 50’s as we left the house at 5:30 in the morning. We found parking and made it to the bus lines that took us back to the start by 6:05.

And I have to add that AK and I beat Uli and Trisha Steidl by about 5 minutes.......to the bus line : )

The bus ride was cool and we meet a first time half runner that wanted all the advice we could load on him in the 10 minute ride to the start.

With logging in training miles and hitting workouts you sometimes forget the “why” you do it all. Hitting the bridge Sunday and looking across from Mt. Baker to Rainier and seeing all of the downtown Seattle area with the Cascades bringing up the back it snaps you right back into remembering the “why”. Because of payoffs like this!

It was easy to overlook the danger of the mornings run, I saw 2 people get pulled from the course for heat related issues. One about 10 yards in front of me, the medic’s literally had to grab him and pull him to the side and repeat to him that it was over. He was weaving badly and couldn’t raise his arms, scary.

The hills were brutal with the heat, every water station I grabbed two water, one went on my head and the other down the front of the wick tank top I was wearing. At about mile 9 my shoes were so full of water I was making squishing noises as I ran. Annoying!!!

AK said she faired pretty well with the heat by doing the same with the water and staying pretty even tempo on the hills. She did say at about mile 10-11 the water station ran out of cups so they were just filling peoples mouths directly.

The crowd support was amazing, there wasn’t a two minute stretch it seemed that didn’t have a group or a hand full of people cheering and yelling. I was talking with this guy I was running with for a few miles and we were both surprised at the turn out.

I felt really good and steady. I got caught in the first 2 miles by the crowds, my own fault for not getting closer to the start line, it took me and AK 3:18 to cross the start after the gun went off. After I got out of the crowds my legs felt pretty fresh and it wasn’t until the hills at mile 7-8 that I could tell I just hadn’t trained well enough for the hills. The hill in that part just kept climbing and climbing. I was taxed by the time I got to the top, it had a short downhill, but not enough to recover. Mile ten was back on familiar ground, but was wide open and exposed to the sun.

I was doing really good pace down through the last few miles, found my legs again and started pulling 6:30’s and feeling good, knowing we just had a quick run around the Bellevue Square area. However, every time I looked down the road I could still see runners going straight, were I thought they’d turn??? Finally we turned and I took about four or five steps around the corner and saw the hill we had to climb to get back to the downtown area and stopped almost instantly. Which was funny because at that point I was running with five other people they all did the same thing. We all stopped on a dime and looked at it for about two seconds, did a little swearing and started up. I made it about half way and started walking, I hate walking in the race!!!!

Finally made the top and started up again. I didn’t feel too bad about walking because in about three blocks I caught the group I was running with and past them in the final turn to the finish. I had a good strong kick at the end and crossed the line with some good speed.


I made it around and found a spot and the finish to see AK and her police escort across the line. Since the full and half started at the same time, they finish at the same time. The marathon winner came in about 10 seconds before AK crossed the line, so she got a nice little push across the finish.

All in all it was a really cool event, rough course, but the organizers of the event have really proved over the last few years how to put on a really great event. AK and I have run in some distance for SeaFair for the last four years now.

Picture from Mondays news paper has the winner Edward Kiptum and AK is in the red shorts and pony tail to the right.


And this is how we felt after we got back from the race, Penny some how beat us to it???

What's the weather like tomorrow?

OK, I’m so ready for the sun and heat of spring and summer to start. The cold and rainy days are I know ”Life”. I still wouldn’t mind maybe a small chunk of warm weather to run in maybe once every 3 weeks or so. It’s kind of funny because I vividly remember on my 22 mile training run for Phoenix last year, on a cold freezing rain day, running down the Burke saying or yelling to myself “ NO MORE TRAINING THROUGH WINTER!”. And thinking last year at the end of the Pumpkin Push,‘ Just 3.1 miles away from having to run in the cold’. Well, I can’t understand what happened, one minute I’m sitting on the couch munching on cheez-it’s and the next I’m looking at the 29 degree weather as I’m strapping on my forerunner. I blame AK, or Moose for having lousy conversations on the couch???

Moose blowing the candles out on his birthday cake this last year.

With this years training starting out in December it’s hard to get up and face another 28-38 degree weather run or “ cringe, yuck “ bike ride. I can run in most any weather, for better or worst, but unless I’m caught in it and have no choice, I can’t bike in ice cold weather. However, seeing the progress this far in my swim and strength training, as well as keeping my weight at “fighting weight”, even over the holidays is a great payoff.

I got to take out the new bike the other day for a quick 20 minute ride down to Green Lake and back. I can’t wait to get it fitted and start doing longer training rides. Speaking of rides, last Saturday I took George on a ride with Eileen. George was running really smooth and felt like a champ on the hills. He was running good enough to let me keep up with Eileen, which isn’t the easiest thing to do most times. She’s training for the STP this year, to finish in one day. Totally cool.