My favorite distance for a race is a half marathon, and my favorite half marathon is the Seattle half, so this Sunday was a pretty sweet day. I love this race because it’s a beautiful, challenging course, and doing it in November almost guarantees bad weather here. You have to love running in Seattle to do this race, and it ends up having a very intimate, hometown feel. And being right after Thanksgiving and Dash’s birthday is handy timing for me. A lot of indulging happened over those few days.
I was very nervous when I woke up to the sound of pouring rain Sunday morning. I hadn’t been checking the forecast, because you’re going to run it no matter what, but that did not sound promising. By the time I got to Seattle Center, the rain had stopped, and I warmed up in the Armory until start time. We got so lucky with the weather! It got a little windy and rainy for a bit around mile 3, but other than that it was perfect fall running conditions. Later that day it was absolutely pouring and I was so glad that the race was long over by then.
They changed the course a little this year, and to me it was overall even better. A lot of people said it was even hillier than it used to be, which may be true, but we didn’t have to do the really monster hill in Madison Park that always half kills me. I love this course because it covers a lot of ground, and every time, there are stretches where I don’t even really know where I am. Nice to have been here over 20 years and still have spots to discover.
One major downside to an otherwise fabulous race was that I am very sure it was a little short. My Garmin showed it as 12.9, but I heard 12.7 from someone else, and I believe it. I remember passing the 11 mile marker and thinking there was no way we were 2.1 miles from the finish. I was most definitely not shooting for a PR, and I don’t know if the full was also short, but regardless, that’s inexcusable. I hope they fix it next year because it’s otherwise an awesome course.
Now that I’m officially menopausal and running like a normie, I am super relaxed on race day, and I still haven’t even looked at the results. I (mostly) didn’t mind that I finished alongside the 2:20 pacer, when two years ago, finishing under two hours was my bare minimum expectation. I’m a big fan of lowering bars. I loved Thanksgiving, and I loved Dash’s birthday, and I loved this race, and we went to see Coco after, and I loved that too, so I’m just bursting with love I guess. See you next year, Seattle half!
