Ramblings of a Monkeygirl I laughed, I cried, I fell down…

26.2 miles in Seattle

Inaugural Seattle Rock n' Roll Marathon, June 27, 2009

I was standing on the sidewalk at five o’clock in the morning on race day waiting for my running partner, Diane, to show up when the reality of “25,000 runners” started to sink in. The line of shuttle buses stretched out for blocks, empty buses slotting in to be filled with waiting runners as soon as a full one would rumble away. I appreciated the speed and organization of it all but was a little intimidated by the realization that I was part of a BIG EVENT ™.

Diane and I managed to find each other, and we hopped onto the next bus towards the start line in Tukwila. I was a little apprehensive about running the upcoming 26.2 miles because, to be honest, I’d slacked off of the training in the last month and a half for a variety of reasons – getting sick, feeling mentally and physically burnt out, wanting to climb more than run…

We arrived at the start line chaos early and ended up with a chilly, hour and a half wait before we needed to find our race groups. Slowly but surely, and in spite of my apprehension, I was starting to get amped up. Maybe it was the music (hey they played Don’t Stop Believing by Journey and you know that always gets me going!) or the black tea I’d drunk earlier, but really, I suspect it was the energy of all the people around us that was fueling me to speak at a mile-a-minute to Diane while waiving my arms around excitedly.

Now I am not a crowd person. In fact, I loathe/despise/couldpunchintheface crowds. When I am stuck in a crowd for any reason, I take off towards the edges and don’t look back, often shedding friends and family in the process. On this day, however, when Diane and I finally waded in to the middle of our corral (yes, they call race start groups corrals), I felt none of the claustrophobia and annoyance that I usually feel when packed into a space with others. You would think I would be completely freaked out by the (holy shit!) 25,000 runners around me. I mean, this was the epitome of a “seething mass of humanity,” and, even more frightening, it was entirely clad in polyester and spandex!

Instead of being even a tiny bit annoyed, however, I felt nothing but admiration and excitement for everyone around me. People were here to run a marathon or half marathon for a multitude of reasons – one woman was celebrating the honorable discharge of her stepson from the army, many people were raising money for leukemia research, one woman was running with her barely teenaged daughter, and one woman was celebrating the fact she was NOT getting married (see notes below!). Whatever the reason, I think you could call all of us a little bit crazy, and the energy of thousands and thousands of people getting ready to push themselves beyond the normal was invigorating and a bit awe inspiring.

The gun finally went off at 7am but, because Diane and I were deeply entrenched in the cheap seats (Corral 25), we didn’t actually start running until about 7:45. Diane had some technical difficulties with her running watch and iPod, but once they were sorted out, she pretty much took off like a rocket. I had to gun it to keep up with her every time she sped up to pass someone (I suspect she’s competitive enough to really enjoy passing people like that.) Eventually I stopped suggesting that we slow down and just hung on. The first 10 miles were uneventful and fairly chill, even with the few hills, but I was starting to get hungry and hadn’t had a Gu (energy gel - think of jam in a convenient, single serving packet) in a little while.

The marathoners were split off from the half marathoners around mile 10, and they sent us to run on the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge, or, to be very clear, THEY PUT US ON THE FREEWAY. Sure we were completely separated and safe from the cars in a section of road used for variable direction traffic, but there were two lanes of loud, exhaust-y traffic on both sides of us. Combined with the lack of shade, hard concrete roadway, and gnawing hunger, I was starting to feel a tiny bit miserable. The clear sight of Mount Rainier in the distance helped a bit, but things got steadily worse when we turned around and went into the Mount Baker Tunnel. People had enough energy to shout and cheer while running through what was essentially an echo chamber, and the race organizers had had the brilliant idea to put a band in the middle of said echo chamber. My anti-crowd/vague claustrophobia was kicking in and I had to get out of there. My brain and body was starting to shut down, and I was feeling worse and worse by the second. When we exited the tunnel I told Diane that I absolutely had to stop at mile 13 to eat something. The rational part of my brain knew I was flirting with bonking and had to get fuel in me before it actually crashed down on me (If you’ve never bonked, imagine the worst you’ve ever felt and pile on depression and helplessness and you’ll get close).

I am, if nothing else, incredibly responsive to sugar, so one Powerbar and a few sips of Cytomax drink later, and I was back to my chipper self and ready to go again. The next 7 miles were fairly uneventful (read: one foot in front of the other) and I even really enjoyed parts of it - Seattle was definitely trying to impress us with the beautiful weather and views of the city and mountains. After mile 20, I even let myself think “Only 6 more miles to go!!” I started having some dehydration issues that weren’t being solved by the copious amounts of Cytomax and water I was drinking, but the medical volunteers were handing out little packets of table salt that helped keep the leg cramps at bay. Though very fatigued and in some pain from the repeated pounding on concrete (much harder than dirt and asphalt), I was feeling good enough that the tunnel around mile 21 didn’t faze me at all. In fact, I was even amusing myself by thinking about zombies and how running from them in that long, dark tunnel would be awful.

Around mile 23, however, things started to look really grim. The race organizers had put in several out and back arms to the course, and this last one was under open sun, heading out and downhill to the train yards. By mile 24 my optimism from the zombie tunnel had evaporated, and I was in a heads-down, painful grind towards the end. I toyed with the idea of telling Diane to go on without me while I walked, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I told myself, “It’s only a little pain” and that a little pain never stopped this climber and runner. I also told myself that I wasn’t suffering from any knee pain from my illiotibial band like I expected I would so I had no excuses. I just grit my teeth and kept going without saying anything to Diane. After the turn around, my heart/gut failed a bit in the face of the uphill run to mile 26, but the uphills hadn’t stopped me the whole race (in fact I actually enjoyed most of the uphills), and I was damned if it was going to stop me at that point.

The race organizers redeemed themselves with a glorious downhill turn onto an offramp just after mile 26. There are few things that make me feel as alive as running downhill towards a finish line so Diane and I took off as best we could given that we’d just run 26 miles. When we rounded the last turn and hit the flat stretch before the finish line, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were running a 9-minute mile. To my surprise and delight, I saw Adam off to the right waving and Diane’s family as well. I think I could have picked up even more speed – I almost always leave enough to gun it right at the end – but it was more important to me to hit that finish line with Diane than sprint it all out. We finished strong and our feet hit the timing plate at the same time.

Official time: 5 hrs 6 mins

Things that got me through the marathon:
Cytomax, my Camelback, Gu energy gels, Cliff shots, one well-timed Powerbar, little packets of table salt, Podrunner music, iPod Shuffle, gorgeous Seattle weather, and an awesome running partner.

Memorable things observed during the day:

• A port-a-potty company with the unfortunate and slightly disgusting name, “Honey Bucket”
• A male marathon runner lighting up a cigarette at 6am in the middle of the rest of us runners.
• Two women wearing a shirt that said:
  • Non-refundable wedding deposit: $6000
  • Un-returnable wedding dress: $1500
  • Celebrating the fact that “ex” now precedes “fiancé” by running this marathon: PRICELESS.
• A giant bald eagle in a tree next to the racecourse around mile 8.
• Mount Rainier seemingly floating in the distance beyond Lake Washington

Things I learned about running and myself:

• If I want to beat a 5 hr marathon, I'll need to watch our pace (i.e., use the damn watch that Diane and Rob gave me)
• I can do a lot of things, even painful things, when I put my mind to it.
• Sugar alone does not keep me going for that long - I must have salty snacks!
• Zombies would probably eat me if they chased me during a marathon. I will have no weapons and little energy to run faster.
• Training with friends is the best way to do one of these monstrosities
• I prefer running on dirt, surrounded by trees, but road running isn't as bad as I used to think.

Would I do another marathon?

HELL NO…well, maybe, I mean I’ve done 2 now… I suppose it’d be nice to break the 5 hour mark… if someone asked me to… aw hell, you know I can’t say no.