What a great race!!

 Today I finished the 2011 Seattle Rock 'n' Roll Marathon/Half Marathon  and everything went great! No pain, good timing (3hr. 4 min) perfect weather & support. It was AWESOME!

The train ride down to Seattle on Friday was pleasant - almost like a ferry ride since it follows the shore a lot of the way with a great ocean view. Deb & Eric were waiting for me and we walked over to the Quest Field Event Center and spent some time walking through the Health & Fitness Expo collecting information, goodies, our race packets & T-shirts.

Friday night we had a great carbo-loading dinner at the Olive Garden. The race starting line is in Tukwilla and there is NO parking there. Most of the runners stay in downtown Seattle or meet there to take special race-day shuttles to the start. Getting all 27,000 people to the starting line on time is quite a challenge with traffic back ups. The McEwen/McGrath team has discovered a little motel about a block from the starting line so we are right there in the morning. (Shhh.. not many have discovered it yet!)

At about 6am runners start moving into corrals according to expected speed. At 7am the race starts & runners leave in 3 minute waves to spread us out. There were 40 corrals and it took about an hour for everyone to be on their way. The weather was perfect and lots of fun was going on as we waited our turn to start. Beach balls were tossed over the crowd, rock music was playing, great MC's were encouraging us & introducing the celebrity runners who were there - including one of the Big Loosers who plans to do 50 Half marathons this year!

As I've said before, the course is great. We passed HS Cheer leaders and bands about every mile. The highlights to me are the route along Lake Washington, going through the Tunnel, walking up I-90 toward Quest Field, taking a loop through downtown Seattle then finishing at the Quest Field parking lots.

Can you  see me? I'm in there! 2011

After my bad fall while running last week I wasn't sure I could still do this but my injuries healed up, and away I went! My time was pretty good considering that I didn't get much training this spring but I plan to work harder this summer and improve my time in September at the Bellingham Bay Marathon.

Eric, our son-in-law is a more experienced runner and always does a great job. He finished way before I did. Across the finish line we are handed our medallions and then move on to tables of food and drinks. Deb was there to meet us. Once again I had a problem with low blood sugar when I stopped. I had eaten a lot more this time on the way plus Cytomax energy drink but it still took me awhile to get back to normal. I need to work that out! We came back home, I had a long nap and am feeling GREAT!! :)

More photos to come..