I should be on the way to the airport now to fly the 1000 miles south to Seattle. My flight is delayed 2 hours. Hopefully I’ll still make it to Seattle tonight and in time to get some rest before the pre-race activities tomorrow. Option B is to fly north 1000 miles to Anchorage then red-eye 2000 miles south east to Seattle arriving in time for an early breakfast.
I decided to run this race minutes after finishing my first marathon; the one thing that I didn’t have on that race, that I knew could make a huge difference is people. I want to run with a lot of other runners (there were 10 marathoners in August) and I want to run with some serious crowd support. I am hoping for both of those by heading south.
On the Seattle Marathon web page there is much chatter in the reviews about the hills. I will say this, if you want to run hills, you should come to Southeast Alaska. We run up some shit. Regularly. My 20 mile runs had 1,145 and 1,623 feet of elevation gain on them. I’m hoping this is to my advantage on the 400′ elevation gain in Seattle. My disadvantage will be pavement–the furtherst I have ever run on pavement is 16 miles, and that was on the Klondike Highway in the YKT. We have a definite lack of paved road that goes very far in any one direction on our island. My second 20 mile run had about 12 miles of pavement and the rest dirt road and trail. My first 20 miles had less than that and was run mostly on trail. I wonder now how much the increased pavement running had contributed to my TFL flare up. When I got off the pavement it started getting better; however I also changed shoes, dropped mileage and sought various manipulative therapy. I don’t know why it is getting better, but it is and I now just hope I can get 26.2 more miles out of it before I do what I should have done about 500 miles ago (more strength training to get a stronger butt).
This will be my first race with: an expo, chip timing, spectators along the route, and is in a different state. I have raced frequently in the past few years, but except for one (which was north of here) they’ve been in Sitka and pretty small affairs. Also, my average running pace gets me very nearly at the end of the pack of extremely strong local runners. I’m really looking forward to running in the middle. This is my first desination race and my first big deal race. My family from the Seattle area is coming and I saw a picture of them making signs for me!
I hopefully will get to Seattle tonight and tomorrow will see the route. I signed up for the bus tour–since 22 miles of it are in parts of the city that I’m not totally familiar with.
I have spent this week pretty freaked out about what to wear. This time of year is a total crap shoot. For a while it looked like it would be pretty warm (for me) in Seattle at 55 degrees, which would be perfect (shorts and t-shirt weather). Now it looks like it will be at least 10-20 degrees below that, but not raining and much less humid than Sitka. The good thing about obsessing about clothes and gear is that I haven’t had time to worry about other stuff…like running.
Another thing I’m worried about is having to pee…a lot. Frankly, we don’t have to worry about that much, we run in the woods. Even when I follow all the pre race suggestions to address this, I still end up having to go a few times on long runs. I am worried about having enough socially acceptable options for this without having to stop and wait in line.
There is a 4:40 pace group for this race. That’s my goal. Do I run with the group? I plan to start conservatively and make up time in the middle and at the end. I have no idea how a pace group runs. At least I’ll try to keep them in sight! I’ve never run with pace groups. I’m new at marathons, I don’t have a bunch of runs at this distance. My focus will not to be to go out too fast–especially on the flat in the middle.
4:40 is 13 minutes faster than my first marathon. Totally possible. I think. I hope. Fingers crossed
Earlier this week I felt like I was getting sick (of course), as I am now used to and come to expect this, I didn’t freak out about it. I knew I was fighting a virus when all my weak areas flared up and I had (ankle, knee, hip) pain for no aparent reason. I was glad to get it over with early in the week. I have gotten lots of sleep the past few weeks. I’ve been keeping to my training program. Now I wait and see if it has done what it’s supposed to (increase my stamina to better carry me through the distance).
week 10: 24.1 miles, spin, barre, long run 12.2 (which sucked)
week 11: 18 miles spin, barre, long run 6.5 (which was better)
week 12: 8.6 miles, spin, no barre, hard 3.5 (Thanksgiving) Turkey Trot, really great, easy 2 miles
Total to date in this training program 344.1 miles. Total since 4/6/15 805.3 miles. 4 pairs of running shoes plus gortex shoes (that I don’t wear often). 235 days of training. Ready to take a break, work on healing, strengthening and deciding what’s next! Thanks for being on this journey with me.
Training For My First Marathon 