Seattle Half Marathon

Last weekend I did the Seattle half marathon. Drove up Saturday with three others to do packet pickup and go to the really good expo. Had dinner at the Pike Street Brewery and dessert at the Fox Sports bar just in time to see the dramatic end to the WSU- UW football game. Then spent the night in the Westin on the 28th floor- that was nice with the night-time downtown Seattle view out the window.
Got to the Experience Music museum in the morning and it was COLD, somewhere in the low 30's. We had met up with one other person at the start and they all wanted to do a 1:45 pace, which would be a social pace for them and a 5K pace for me. They had enough porta-potties that there was no line even with thousands of people- everything about the race was well organized. We moved up until we were standing with the 1:45 pacer for the start. I stayed with the others through downtown and onto a highway bridge that felt icy and then I started to fade at 3 miles having kept an 8 even pace for those 3 miles. So the rest of the time I ran by myself in the giant group at my pace. Through a tunnel where some people yelled to hear the echo. Then along Lake Washington on a road I recognized from the Seattle to Portland bike ride. Then up some hills and then up one steep hill and past some big crowds and into an arboretum. After that it went slightly uphill for a long time past big trees and was pretty, but tiring. Then towards downtown with a great skyline and space needle view (it was a perfect blue sky day). About 3 miles from the finish I was at a 9 mile/minute pace so I just tried to keep it there and 2 miles out sped up a little and then with 1 mile left it goes steeply downhill, so I opened it up, but then it goes back up a ramp and that hurt. Then the final push into the stadium, so I ran strong, didn't sprint, and saw the timer at 1:58 and knew I was going to beat my goal of 2 hours. Crossed the line at 1:58:55 for a 9:05 pace. The others I came with did 1:46. We met up at the finish and went in to get soup and drinks, they had a great spread, but it was wall-to-wall people. Took the bus back to the Westin and used the hot tub and then went to the Bell Street Cafe on the waterfront for a great crab-shrimp-cheese sandwich. We had planned to go up in the space needle since it was a perfect day, but everyone started to wind down by the end of lunch so we drove back to Portland instead.
For some great pictures of the day, check out Lizzie Lee.