Half Marathon

The half marathon started at Husky Stadium on University of Washington’s campus. There were a lot of people for this race. I’m not sure how many corrals there were but I was in 23 and there were people behind me! I snuck into 20 with Eric. The starting temp was 57 degrees and overcast. Besides the humidity, it was perfect. I ran the first 8 or 9 minutes before I took a walk break. The nice downhill helped with this. J I then went into my run/walk mode. I switched it up, not really sticking to one ratio. I mostly focused on my average pace for the mile I was in. When my pace got fast, I walked for a bit. When my overall pace would creep slower, I would run again. That worked well as most of my miles were consistent. For the first half of the race I wanted to keep my miles under 14 minutes and I was successful at that. I even had a mile that was under 13!  Mile 9 is when my pace went over 14 minutes. For the second half of the race, I wanted to keep my miles under 15 minutes. Again, I was successful with this even though I was close a couple miles. I was close to having another under 14-minute mile for the last mile but the course went up a hill at the end of mile 13 and my legs were shot so it came in at 14:20. Darn! My overall time was 3:03:44. Not my best, of course, but it was my most consistent. And that is my goal right now, consistency.

Rock ‘n Roll Seattle 5K

Perfect Running Weather!

This past weekend we ran the 5K and Half Marathon as part of the Rock ‘n Roll Series in Seattle. It was an overall great experience.

5K

The 5K started and ended at the Flight Museum. It took about 45 minute by bus to get there. We got there with plenty of time to go inside the museum and use their bathroom. That was very nice! I got to see a few of the displays. I think it would be a very interesting museum. The race had about 2,000 participants. The course was straight and flat. We ran down a wide straight road, turn around and came back. Nothing too exciting to see except for some big planes but that was about it. The best thing about this race for me is I had negative splits. Each mile was faster than the last. That felt great. Also, all my miles were under 13. My over time was 39:50 which isn’t great but I didn’t to give it my best as it was a warm up to the half marathon the next day. After the race, they had the usual bananas, pretzels and water. The annoying thing was the bus ride back. A bunch of us waited at the temporary bus stop. The bus never came. We saw a lot of busses going the other direction. The temporary stop wasn’t really a stop as the busses were divert much sooner so we waited over an hour for a bus. ARGH!

(aka the day I signed up for 7 races)

Wait, What? Yep, you read that right 7 races. The races added to my growing list for 2017 are:

- Lift Bridge 10K
- Esprit de She 5K
- Women Rock 2.5K
- Women Rock 5K
- Women Rock 10K
- Chocolate Frolic 10K
- Rock N' Roll San Antonio Half Marathon

And the best part is I got discounts on all of them except for the Life Bridge Race. Score me!

My coworkers think I’m crazy. HAHAHA, yes I am!

Now I need to go for a run to celebrate!

Another race is in the bag for 2017. That was #15. I’m on course to hit my 40 by 40 goal.

The race was nothing to write home about. I only had 2 miles in me and mile 3 I just tanked. It didn’t help that the start of mile 3 is a long hill and as I’ve complained about numerous times I hate running uphill. I need to seriously train on hills. I always say I’m going to do a hill work out but then go on my usually flat route. Ha! Mile 1 was great if you consider my times lately. It was 12:18. I thought maybe I could do as good as I did at Donut Dash three weeks ago. Mile 2 made sure that didn’t happen when I finished it just under 13 minutes. Mile 3 was a death march. LOL! I barely got it under 15 minutes. What the heck is wrong with me? 

The weather was a factor. It was very warm (75 degrees at start) and a bit humid. I need to get used to this heat again. I thought last week’s 20KM in 90 degrees would have helped me but nope.

My time was 41:00 which is embarrassingly slow. I ran a long run on Sunday that was almost faster than that. Granted my long run only lasted about 4 miles before I called it quits and walked 2 miles home. I need to get out of this training funk!