Seattle Marathon: Rock and Roll...down a cliff

Yesterday's race was an experience to say the least. There where several moments throughout the race where I legitimately wanted to drop out of the race. The amount of pain I was in during the latter parts of the race was so severe that we (Kyle and myself) had hard times simply walking. But I think that the most beneficial little nugget of knowledge I learned from yesterday's race was to always keep your goals in mind (Our goals happened to be the following: 1. Finish the race and 2. Drink beer)

We arrived at our corral about five minutes before the race officially started. Everyone was representing their newly acquired gear from yesterdays expo: compression socks, hydration packs, and other goodies that add "mental reassurement" that they will run better. Nonetheless, it took about twenty minutes for us to reach the start line. Frank Shorter sent off each corral onto the streets of Seattle (Side note: I got to meet Frank Shorter personally at the expo and got his autograph. I also got to meet Steve Scott, got his autograph, and he gave me some coaching advice about how to improve my strength while running).

As we began our adventure from the EMP towards Lake Washington BLVD the roads were relatively flat, which allowed for some difficulties in pacing (Throughout the first half of the race, all of our miles were between 8:40 and 9:10). The first ten miles were quite nice, except for a small bathroom break that I had to take a little past mile eight. We ran along Lake Washington BLVD where there was an absolute gorgeous view of Mt. Rainier. This portion of the run (from miles seven through eleven) was a loop that only the participants of the marathon completed (gotta add the extra 13.1 miles somewhere right??). As we left the loop and approached the halfway mark, my legs started to talk back to me and they were not saying nice things. It was at this poing in the race where I wanted to quit.

There are a number of factors that contribute to the fact that the last half of the race consisted of spurts of hobbling, mixed with lots of walking and stretching, and a dash of disappointment.

Factor #1 I had not trained. Often this is the largest reason for the inability fo succeed during a race; lack of preparation. I had not done any run over nine miles in the past six months (remember, this is a 26.2 mile race).

Factor #2 I did not how to handle mid-race hydration (I looked like a fool trying to drink water/Gatorade while jogging), nor how to consume those disgusting GU gel packets.

Factor #3 I underestimated the marathon. There is a reason why 4.1% of runners in the 2012 Boston Marathon did not finish the race. It could be due to the two factors I listed above or entirely different reasons.

Nonetheless, I will not underestimate another race again. I learned valuable experience that cannot be taught in a class, or absorbed from a another runner's horror stories. The experience of nearly falling at something has to be learned; otherwise, how will you realize when you have failed at something?


This is us post-race (I am the one on the left in the green singlet).