Seattle Half Marathon 2010

I ran the Seattle Half Marathon on Sunday.  I had originally hoped to do the full 26.2 miles for this race but due to my injury this summer that sent me all the way back to the start line of training (4 mile long run anyone?) ... I had to settle for 13.1 instead.  I suppose this was a blessing in disguise as it's been a hard last couple of months for training with illness in the house, migraines, a huge 40th birthday party and cake for my husband and did I mention illness?  Yes, the cold bug has been vicious.  Ha!  I guess it's been a hard few months for blogging too as I haven't done that either.  But I digress ... All that said, I'm happy I was able to run the half.  I mean, 13.1 miles is nothing to sneeze at.  It's still a really long way especially when you throw in all the hills of Seattle.  Yes, the hills.  They were okay.  At first.  Actually, the entire race was okay.  At first. The morning started with a very faint headache.  I debated taking something but opted to just ignore it and run it out since I don't like taking medication before a long run. I started the race out with a friend of mine and another friend of hers.  Both these gals are super fit and faster than me but I thought, hey, maybe they'll spur me on to a better time.  So, against my better judgement and ignoring the little voice in my head screaming, "Run your own race, run your own pace!" I kept up with my friends for the first 3 miles and hey, it was feeling easy.  I'm slow to drink water at the water stops and during those few seconds of lag time some other runners managed to squeeze in between us and I found myself father behind.  I knew I could sprint ahead and catch them but reason finally prevailed and I knew I had to let them go and just settle in at my own happy pace.  By mile 4 there was a slight nagging heavy sensation in my bladder.  Shoot!  I did not want to deal with a porta-potty stop.  I tried to keep running and ignore it but it was taking away from my enjoyment of the race so I began looking for lines at porta-potties that weren't too terribly long.  Mile 8 offered relief and I was so happy to make the stop.  My pace picked up a bit for the next two miles as I felt much better.  And then mile 10 came.  At the beginning of fall I had planned on getting in some longer runs ... 12 miles, 13 miles, maybe even 14 but like I said, life had a way of interfering with my plans.  My longest run was 10 miles ... 10 flat miles so when mile 10 came in the race my brain said, "We're done.  You spent the energy for these last 3 miles in the first leg of the race you silly girl."  I also noticed that unlike past half marathons the allure of miles 10-13 had vanished.  No longer could my brain tell my body, "Whoo hoo!!!  You're running 12 miles!  Now you're at 13!  Keep going!"  Nope,  instead my brain was saying, "Ho hum ... been there ... done that.  I'm tired.  Let's get this over with and go home."  I had to focus really hard on the fact I got to run into Memorial Stadium and receive a new medal.  Oh, did I mention my Garmin was messed up?  I had forgotten to clear it from my previous run so I had no idea what my time was.  That really annoys me and didn't help with prompting me to pick up the pace.

All said and done this was my worst finish time yet.  2:27:and some odd seconds.  Yuck!  But at the same time, "Ehhh ... it happens."  They can't all be great races.

And this wasn't a terrible race.  I may have had a terrible finish time but I didn't have a terrible time.  I enjoyed running through the streets of Seattle.  In fact, I really enjoyed running on the freeways.  It was fun to run on roads I used to have to wait out traffic jams on. In fact, slow as I was in this race, I am sure I was running faster than my car has moved on those roads at various times.  The views of the water and city were beautiful and the weather, you can't really ask for better running weather.  Even the hills weren't horrible.  When I'm better trained I prefer hills on my course.  What goes up must come down and I like pushing myself on the up and catching my breath again on the down.  I liked the Seattle course and so yes, I would like to tackle it again and hopefully, even tackle the full course.  But hopefully I can do it without a headache, with better training and with a lot more smarts in the first 3 miles.