ONLY 25,000 RUNNERS SHOWED UP! That's all the organizers would take probably 'cause they couldn't find enough porta-potties for any more than that! Diane took off on her own for the full marathon, while Stephanie and I did the half. They grouped us into "corrals" of several hundred runners. Stephanie and I were in corral 23, and there was still no end of corrals in sight behind us! That's a LOT OF PEOPLE! Fortunately they thinned out as the race progressed, so there was hardly any congestion along the route.
There were a lot of groups of CHEERLEADERS from various local schools cheering us on and crowds of on-lookers all along the way hollering kind words and even spraying us with water hoses. It was a really level track with hardly any inclines, so we didn't have to stress much. We ran through some pretty classy neighborhoods, of course given we were running along the waters edge a lot of the time.
THE SCENERY WAS AWESOME as we were running along tree lined streets and through very pretty parks and even right along the lake with the water lapping up along the sidewalk next to where we were running! We watched motorboats zipping by as we ran which was unusual for a race. Normally on a race we're dodging cars and trucks and all sorts of wheeled vehicule traffic, not boats!
Then they ran us through the I-90 tunnel which was unique to any runs I've ever been on! Of course the Garmins didn't work in there so it wrecked the record of the race according to our race watches! They had a band at the end of the tunnel but fortunately their music didn't carry very far. Guess all those moving bodies acted as sound barriers to dampen the accoustics.
This is now us running on I-90, the trans-continental highway that starts in New York City and ends up here in Seattle. Wow! I guess that should be a thrill! It is probably the only time we'll ever see the pavement and overpasses that close and going that slowly! Normally driving along here in a vehicle it's at 50 or 60 miles per hour in bumper to bumper traffic and you get schmoosched if you slow down at all!
And finally the medals and the pictures. The smiles usually are grimaces of pain camouflaging the fact that though some of the lower extremities are just plain numb, a vociferous bunch of still living muscles are screaming their discontent at having been force-marched over thirteen or twenty-six miles without any logically acceptable reason!
All this for just a hunk of ribbon and a cheapy little piece of metal? These Rock and Roll organizers seem to 
have gotten it down to a science, as everything appeared to run smoothly with all these thousands of runners running around, and they even sent me a great little souvenir certificate, a couple weeks later, giving me recognition for finishing the Half Marathon successfully, in only 2 hrs, 40 minutes and 29 seconds! This put me in 12th place among 70 -74 yr olds, 3475th place among all men, and 10741st place overall! Very cool for them to figure this all out! Makes me feel like I accomplished something!
No comments:
Post a Comment