12/1/99
The season that just ended was so-so. I had too many interruptions to my training to advance as much as I'd liked, and I didn't get to do some races I wanted to do, like the Mutual of Enumclaw stage race. And I didn't get as much track racing in as I was planning.
I started some riding in the off-season, but then I stopped. I started running twice a week into lab in order to train for the half-marathon. Although Don P. and some others on the bike team were talking about doing it, in the end, I was the only one to actually do it. Matt H.'s wife Val also did the half marathon, but she's apparently some long-distance running person, and finished 13th place in her division, with minimal training. She ran the 13.1 miles (I think) in something like 1:36 (one hour, thirty-six minutes).
I had to wake up fairly early in order to drive down to Seattle Center, where the run was going to start. It's where the Space Needle and the Key Arena (Home of the Sonics) are. There were a lot of people even 1 hour before the start. I was getting a bit nervous, but not too much. I was just concentrating on finishing my run. I couldn't get to sleep properly the night before, so I was kinda tired to begin with. The weather, on the other hand, was excellent, and completely dry, a rarity this time of year in Seattle. Tom, a MD fellow in the lab I work in, was also doing the half marathon. He did the whole marathon last year, and said it was very difficult to finish the race because it was raining, cold, and the course went right next to his house near the end. He vowed never to run the marathon again, but decided the half doesn't count.
We were talking about trying to find each other, but the huge numbers of people packed near the start made that pretty much impossible. Compared to the turnouts at bicycle races I have participated in, the number of runners was staggering.
We were all issued the customary number bibs, but we were also issued little velcro straps with a computer chip. The organizers use these to quickly tabulate or finishing times. There's something like the shoplifting alarms at stores that talk to the computer chips as you run past them.
The run started going down one of the big streets downtown. It may have been 5th. It was kind of strange, spending a crisp Sunday morning running down the middle of the street in middle of downtown in the middle of a crowd of 1000+.
I wasted a few minutes at the first porta potty (there were portable toilets at every water stop, which was placed about once every 1.5 miles). Luckily, I didn't have to stop at any more rest rooms. I managed to get enough water, but I had to slow to a walk in order to drink out of the cups.
One of the most interesting parts of the run was about 1/4 of the way into it, where the course went on the I-90 express ramp, and through the tunnel that goes underneath a fairly big hill. This was stranger than running downtown. About 3/4 of the way through the tunnel, a bunch of runners behind me started shouting and yelling. It was very cool. You'd first hear a far away screeching sound, which would get louder and closer as more and more people contributed to the yelling. You could almost feel the sound push you along the tunnel. Very cool.
The rest of the run was fairly uneventful. Some fool tossed their half empty water cup and hit my leg. All the hills on the course were on the last 1/3rd of the course. The hills weren't steep or as long as the hills between my home and the lab, so the hills weren't too bad at all, and I didn't have to stop to walk on any of them. All my resting happened while trying to drink a cup of water or XLR8 (some sports drink they were giving away). Just about the end of the hill, people were handing out some sort of sport gel, which was nice. If you don't know what sport gels are, they are basically a sugary paste, which is supposed to provide quick and easily digestible energy during exercise. I was going to buy some before the race, but I didn't get around to doing it, and was hoping they would be giving some away. Luckily, they were.
With about 4 miles left, I noticed that I was pretty much right on schedule. Since it takes me about 1 hour to run the 6.5 miles between home and lab, I figured that I would finish around 2:10 (two hours, 10 minutes). Quick mental calculation suggested that I would reach this goal easily, and under 2 hours might even be possible. It was near the end, and I wasn't very tired or sore, so I tried kicking up the pace. I started passing quite a few people. I had to pretty much turn in 4 consecutive 8-minute miles, instead of my leisurely 10-minute mile pace. I think I nearly succeeded. With about half a mile to go, I started slowing down some, but not too much. Some people were starting to pass me again, but I was passing a similar number of people.
I finished at 2:02:18, which was much better than I had hoped. I would easily have broken 2 hours if I didn't stop at the restroom at the beginning, or if I knew how to drink from a cup while running.
At the finish, they were handing out plastic space blankets. It looked like some disaster area, except the silvery space blankets had sponsor logos. The next little station had volunteers giving out medals. Then it was free drink. I think it was Clearly Canadian's new drink, which was flavored, fizzy water. It was supposed to be oxygenated. It at least tasted good. Then I had some free synthetic meat burgers called Boca-Burgers, which were surprisingly meat like. Then I went into the big arena where they had food stacked up. I had some sort of bread-like substance and two cup o'noodles. Then I paid for a $15 15-minute massage, which felt good, but wasn't noticeably better than the massages that my totally-un-massage-trained wife gives me.
Then I hobbled back to the car and drove home, rested, and went back to lab.
The leg soreness lasted until today (Wednesday), 3 days afterwards. I was able to ride my bike in today totally pain free, which suggests that the muscles that hurt after the run were the ones that I don't use while cycling. These muscles are probably pretty weak.
I plan on kicking my cycling training up a few notches pretty soon.