Seattle, WA
3:18:00
10th place overall (out of 142)

     Before I get to the race, let me tell you about the 6 months leading up to this race. It was back then that I found an old high school friend, Jill, on Facebook. She is living in Seattle, found out about my running and told me I should come out and run one and see her. I found a nice little (free!) marathon in June and asked her if I could crash on her couch when I came. She said ‘Of Course!’ and so I booked the flight back in February. Now, this marathon-a-month thing is starting to get expensive, especially flying across the US, Detroit to Seattle. My original flight plan was Detroit to Chicago, Chicago to Seattle. The second flight was overbooked and they were looking for volunteers to get bumped for compensation. I glad took $380 to take a later flight that got me into Seattle at 7pm instead of 11am. No problem! That makes this flight free! Jill and I went out for a drink then back to her apartment on Queen Ann hill in Seattle (very posh ) We hung out there with some friends of hers until about 11 pm. Pacific time. I had woke up that morning at 4:45 am. Eastern time. A little more than 21 hours earlier. I was just a LITTLE tired, and of course, I had to run a race at 8:30 the next morning. For reasons I will not go into in this blog, I now confess that the last time I even ran was two weeks ago, at my last marathon in Madison. So I was low on sleep, had a bit of liquor in me, and was not in my best shape. What a great recipe for disaster! This was always going to be a ‘survival’ marathon, with me just planning on running strong, nothing too exciting. I needed a Washington marathon
     This race is only a few years old and has been (and probably always will be) absolutely free. This one is put on a group of volunteers (many!) most of which belong to the Marathon Maniacs, one of the handful of running groups to which I belong. There were no bib numbers, no finishers medals, no awards. Our ‘number’ was written on our calf with a big permanent marker
      The race itself was mostly along a bike path along the small Green River in West Seattle, with the last few miles along Alki beach on the southern side of Puget Sound. The weather at race start was perfect, completely overcast and about 55 degrees. The temp raised a little as the race unfolded, but the clouds stayed all darn day with the occasional sprinkle. Gotta love that great Seattle weather. Apparently there are mountains around here. I saw no evidence of any The aid stations were well run and plentiful. The course (with no marshals of course) was actually very well marked, and I never got lost. This was another marathon with my tried and true method of race eating/hydration, all I consumed during the race was water. No Gatorade, no gu gel packs, nothing but water. And again, I didn’t hit the glycogen wall, which I know how feels, I slowed because of my lack of sleep.
     After my hand stand finish, and a few glass of delish Gatorade, I headed back to Jill’s apartment for a shower. We had about 5 hours before we were going to dinner, so we did the downtown Seattle ‘thing’, including the Market (which is a tourist trap if I ever saw one) as well as the Seattle Art Museum, which was very cool including seeing a Jackson Pollack piece. Just before we entered the museum, Jill asked me if I liked chocolate. After an affirmation as such, we entered a chocolate store across the street from the museum. This was a high end chocolate shop, only selling bite size pieces (think mini Reeses peanut butter cup) for a mere $1.50 a pop. Granted, the chocolate we got was good, but a little spendy.
     After the museum we then went to a bar that had 15+ pinball machines in the back room. Gotta love progressive downtown Seattle. It was awesome. After a few drinks and more great conversation with Jill, we headed out to dinner with her boyfriend and a friend of his. It was a mid-high society restaurant. We had drinks and appetizers. 4 people. Total bill: $136. It’s all about the experience.
      After another late night, we headed home and I crashed (hard) before I had to wake up at 4:45 am to make my 6:45 am flight. Heading home involved no overbooked flights, and no delays, so in other words, pleasantly un-eventful.
      I am trying to stop saying after every race that it was ‘memorable’, because they all are for sometimes very different reasons. In this case it was memorable for the trip, and the marathon was only a minor speed bump that was hard, fast, and fun 54 hour trip. I can honestly say that I can only do the Seattle thing for 2 days. After that, I need to take a break.
      Thanks again Jill!!