Bob Mann: 2018 Seattle Marathon

On Sun Jun 10 2018, I ran the Rock N Roll Seattle Marathon. Washington became state #43 for me. Seattle was a long way to go from my home in New Jersey for just two nights, but so be it. I had a flight at 5:55am out of Newark, and after a brief layover in Detroit, I still go in to Seattle early in the day. Even the Holiday Inn I stayed at was very expensive, but at least I saved money by not renting a car. I took the light rail from the Sea-Tac airport into downtown Seattle, not far from the hotel. I made a stop at the race expo along the way to get my race packet. After settling in, I explored the city near my hotel, which was close to the Space Needle. I had a bite to eat for dinner and headed back to my room. I went to sleep very early. I had been up since 3:30am Eastern time, which was 12:30am Pacific time. So even though it was still early, it had been a long day for me.

Sunday was a nice day for a run. It wasn't very warm, and there would only be sporadic sun. As always, my training wasn't great, but I have enough base constantly built up so that I was confident I could finish. I woke up early and headed out to the park near the Space Needle for the 6:30am start. It was sunny at this point, but clouds were predicted for later, maybe even some rain. Hey, it's Seattle, so I couldn't be surprised to see some rain.

As usual, more runners were participating in the Half Marathon than the Full Marathon. For this one, there were about 9000 Half Marathoners and 1600 for the Full. So the start corrals were rather crowded. It was crowded enough that I couldn't even get to my corral on time. I wound up one corral further back. But with chip timing, that's not a big deal, so I didn't really care.

Because of the dense crowd, my first mile was rather slow, at 10:24. But hey, that's fine, since I don't really care about time any more. Things had thinner out enough that was able to get around to my desired pace for the second, which I completed in 9:28. I couldn't maintain that pace through the third mile, however. For fun, I suppose, they decided to add a crazy-steep hill in that third mile. It was a very short hill, but it was incredibly steep. I'm not the only one to slow to a walk on this hill. Just about everybody did, at least everybody in the group I was in. I think this little hill was the steepest incline I have climbed in a marathon. But again, at least it wasn't a long hill.

Around Mile 5, there was a long straight stretch of road, alongside which there were many many people holding American flags. I'm not sure why they were all there, but there were a lot of them. The line of flags must have stretched well over a quarter of a mile. It was a very impressive sight.

In the tenth mile, we hit another steep hill. This one wasn't quite as steep as the earlier one, but it was a lot longer. Again, most runners in my neighborhood slowed to a walk for at least part of the hill. I suppose I didn't do enough research before the race, because I wasn't aware of all these hills. Oh well, so what? I slowed to a walk for a while, like I do on most uphill stretches, to conserve energy. As a result, my split for Mile 10 was 11:00, which was more than a minute slower than any other mile since the first one in the crowd.

At this point we headed back towards downtown and the Space Needle. The Half and Full ran together for almost 13 miles. Finally the races split, and we Full Marathoners turned away from the finish line area. We entered a tunnel and ran on to a highway that was closed for the race. We ran on Route 99 southward for a couple of miles. There was plenty of sun out here and zero shade. So this was not the most pleasant portion of the course. We ran down to Century Link Field and Safeco Park (home of the Seahawks and Mariners, respectively) before turning around and heading back the way we came.

Around Mile 17, we passed the Space Needle again, continuing north on Route 99. We ran a straight shot north for about 4 more miles. Route 99 was, however, full of rolling hills. I really had not realized that Seattle was so hilly. I probably should have paid more attention to the course profile. I wanted to stick to my plan of walking the uphills, but there were so many long stretches of uphills that I would have had to do a lot more walking that I waned. I walked the steeper portions and ran slowly on the less-steep portions. I think this plan worked, since I seemed to maintain enough energy to run fairly hard (relatively speaking) on the downhills.

We reached our northernmost point around Mile 21, at which point we turned into a city park. Now we were running on a dirt trail. Instead of long steady hills, we were running up steeper, shorter hills. But there were still hills. Yup, Seattle is hilly.

We did a loop around the park that lasted about a mile. Mile 22, which was almost entirely within the park, was my slowest mile of the day, at 12:34. That's one of the slowest miles I've ever recorded in a marathon. Now we dealt with the long rolling hills in reverse on Route 99 on the way back south. . At one point during this return stretch, it began to rain. Well, it's Seattle. It didn't rain hard, and I certainly didn't mind having the sun disappear for a while.

I actually felt pretty good at this late stage of the marathon. I was able to complete Mile 25 in a time of 10:01, which was my fastest mile since Mile 15. I would love to have been just a couple seconds faster and have a mile under 10 minutes that late in the race, but I just missed. Anyway, maintaining a halfway decent pace allowed me to keep my overall time just under 4 and a half hours. After working my way back towards the Space Needle, I crossed the finish line in a time of 4:29:36. So that was just a couple minutes slower than my previous few marathons. Considering the hills, I'm happy with the result.

After the race, I took a brief nap back at my hotel, and then acted like a tourist and went to Pike Place Market. I had some food and beverages at a brewpub there, and then called it a night. The biggest annoyance of the trip back home was my layover in Minneapolis that was extended a couple extra hours because of severe thunderstorms in the midwest. I didn't get back to my house until 1:30am on Tuesday morning. Oh well. Can't really blame anyone for the weather.

My overall impression of the Seattle Marathon was favorable. This was my second Rock N Roll Marathon. The first was in Phoenix in 2012. My reaction to this race seems to be comparable to my reaction in Phoenix back then. The race was nice, although probably not worth the exorbitant cost. Rock N Roll Marathons are quite expensive. But nonetheless, it was enjoyable weekend, and I'm happy I got to cross another state off my list.

And now the photos. Click any image to enlarge.