Let me say up front that every race was probably great for some runners, and that same race on that same day absolutely sucked for others. My guess is that I’m way too harsh on a few, and in all likelihood it was because I wasn’t trained properly or I was coming off injury or I flat out just had a bad race. All of those things happen. In fact, all of those things happened to me in Seattle.
However, as I often tell newcomers to our sport, the bad races make the good ones that much sweeter.
16. Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon – Seattle, Wash. – June 24, 2011
 |
| Pike Place Fish Market is one of the most famous sites |
| in Seattle. But it's not on the marathon course. |
I was coming off some injuries. I was supposed to run both Cowtown (Fort Worth, Texas) and Country Music (Nashville) a few months earlier, but somehow I managed to tear both of my calves. Oddly, I tore them at different times. My right calf tore on a short run, and it seemed to heal pretty quickly. About two to three weeks later, I felt like I was making my comeback. In fact, I was heading out for an 18-miler in Troy, Alabama, where I was with the DU basketball team. My iPod was cranked and I was feeling good, as I approached a downhill just a mile into the run. I heard a pop and went down in pain. I managed to limp back to the hotel, but I was down for at least a month or two.
My training was shot, but I’d already paid for the flight and registration, so I decided to give Seattle a try. I flew in the day before and went straight to the expo at the convention center, which was connected to CenturyLink Stadium. Well, I went almost straight there. I’ve never seen a bigger cluster as far as parking at a race expo. It was ridiculous. All I wanted to do was walk in, grab my stuff and get out. My choices were either pay $25 for parking or walk nearly a mile. There was no in between. So, after driving around for 45 minutes, I parked for free and walked the mile. As it turned out, it was probably a good idea because I ended up parking in the same area for the race, too.
Like a lot of Rock-n-Roll races, buses transported us to the start several miles away. I don’t understand that. In addition to forcing runners to get to the finish line ridiculously early to catch the buses, it just seems questionable from an organizational standpoint. I mean, if it’s Big Sur with 26.2 miles of stunning beauty, it makes sense to do a point-to-point. In Seattle, though, there seemed to be no logic to the course. If the finish is going to be at a stadium, with an enormous amount of parking, why not start and finish in the same spot. Why deal with transporting all the runners? For that matter, why deal with transporting all the gear bags. I can tell you that for this particular race, the reasoning certainly was not to show off all the great parts of the city.
The Rock-n-Roll races are fine. I think they do an outstanding job with half marathons. But from my experience, they don’t seem to care as much about the second half of the full marathons. I get it from a business perspective since there are generally a lot more half marathon runners, but for those of us going 26.2 miles the second half of the race often sticks out in our minds. That was definitely the case with this one.
 |
| Raise your hand if you love out-and-backs |
| in the second half of a race. Anyone? |
Seattle is a beautiful city, and I was excited to run past things like the Space Needle, fish market and maybe even the University of Washington. Most of the first 10 miles were along the coast of Lake Washington. It was nice, and there were a lot of spectators. I ran with a guy who was part of a running group organized by a pub. I guess they got together to run three or four miles and then drank a lot of beer. He was only running the half, but we kept each other company until the split, where the half marathoners went west toward the stadiums and the finish. The full marathoners cut east over a bridge toward Mercer Island, which sounded lovely. However, the bridge was the HOV lane of the interstate, meaning the view to the north was highway, and the view to the south was highway. And, just before we reached the island, we were told to make a U-turn. It was an out-and-back on the bridge. At least we could see the water from time to time between the cars flying by on the interstate.
Shortly after reaching the west side of the bridge, we entered a tunnel that felt like it went forever. I was pretty happy when I emerged on the other side, which was also when I caught my first glimpse of the finish line as we ran past Safeco Field and CenturyLink Stadium. I was hurting a little bit, but we were finally heading into downtown Seattle, and I figured that I was lucky because the half marathon runners wouldn’t see any of it. The course turned north up 1st Avenue through a nice little neighborhood and toward the Space Needle, which we could see in the distance. Then we took a sharp left and onto Alaskan Way Viaduct. It was as ugly as you might expect from a viaduct.
We were running on what felt like an empty highway, which included two more tunnels that were even longer than the first. Since this section was a long out-and-back, we obviously had to come back through the tunnels again. My estimate is that we were underground for about three miles. It may have been less. I have a hard time judging distance during marathons, especially in tunnels when my GPS watch stops working. On top of that, the road was slanted and exhaust lingered. It was awful.
 |
| This is the stretch toward the finish line. |
| Unfortunately, you run right past it into |
| another three-mile out-and-back. |
I was starting to lose it 19 miles into the race. We headed out on another bridge, hundreds of feet over the neighborhoods below. Signs on the bridge offered a phone number to a suicide hotline. I was hoping the signs were not meant for the runners. I was walking and running sections, but I was slowing down big time. My calves were knotted up, and the last thing I wanted was to re-aggravate the injuries and miss more training and more races. I gutted my way through Miles 20-23, which is when the course went right past the finish line again. What the hell? Why would a marathon course pass the finish line with three miles to go? That’s damn near inhumane. On top of that, I had been pretty excited to see Everclear in concert after the race. Guess what band I heard as I went by - one that would certainly be done by the time I finished. I was getting frustrated, and it wasn’t going to get any better.
The final three miles were yet another out-and-back. Worse than that? The first half was downhill, which meant it was going to end on an uphill. Oh, and it was through the ugliest part of the course. All I saw was shipping crates for cargo ships and a Home Depot – you know, just to mix up the scenery a little. I’m not a violent person, but if I would have seen the race director during that stretch, I might have punched him.
The only thing that saved me during those final miles was a single thought. If I’m going to run dozens of marathons, one of them has to be the worst. Seattle was marathon No. 16 for me, and it was without question my worst one. It’s kind of amazing that anything would be better than running Vegas following food poisoning, but this was it. It’s a wonderful city that’s not captured by the marathon course at all, which was disappointing. Of course, my 4:55 finish time was probably more disappointing, as well. I did make it to the finish just in time to see Everclear play their final song, which was bittersweet. The thing that really saved it was getting to see my friends Mike Brush and his family the night before the race, since they were kind enough to offer me a bed for the weekend, even though they were leaving town early on Saturday morning. I also got to meet up with Walter Tseng, a great friend whom I hadn’t seen since my high school cross country days, for a Mariners game.
The great thing about running races in towns across America is seeing the cities by foot and seeing the people, whether it’s new friends or old. Seattle had a few of each. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment