Race Review: Seattle Rock n' Roll Half Marathon (Part 2)

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Part 1

As we crossed the start line my nerves went away and I was excited to be doing another Rock n' Roll event in another beautiful city! We ran through the downtown part of the city for quite a while and there were spectators everywhere which is always awesome! Along with great spectators comes some awesome signs, this was one of my favorites:

I didn't have any trouble not having my water belt but we still chose to do our 10/1's. We were also still stopping at the water stations which of course wasn't necessarily lining up with our 10/1 intervals. I'm not sure why Nikki and I didn't plan this out better the night before seeing as how we knew where the water stations were going to be but we were too busy having fun to think about it I guess. At some point we decided we should probably be taking our walk breaks at the water stations, even though we didn't have any specific time goals because of another race the following day I really didn't want to take too much longer than my average.

I think it was around the 10k mark when we passed a huge water station that we made that decision...:

After this station we turned the corner and suddenly we were running along side the water, it was a beautiful view and even better there was a cool breeze that felt amazing, maybe that's why I finally felt like I found my happy pace:

This race has a reputation for having some hills but up until this point I hadn't noticed anything that horrible, I had a feeling "down" by the water that we'd have to go up at some point and I was right. There were some tiny rolling hills around the paved trail by the water, this was at the top of one of those hills during the "Blue Mile" to remember fallen soldiers:

There was quite a steep hill heading up into a tunnel as we turned away from the water, this was between miles 7 & 9. I'd say the tunnel was close to a mile long. I've never been very fond of running through a tunnel, it can get quite hot and muggy underground so it's just not ideal conditions for me. Thankfully there was a water station in the middle of it and I got a second to get myself together again before heading off towards the light at the end of the tunnel literally! As we exited the tunnel we were running on a highway which was a super exposed and it was starting to get pretty warm. Surprisingly, the heat didn't get to me in this race, I think I had been so concerned about it being pouring rain that I was just content to be dry. Nikki and I got talking in this section about my 1st Full Marathon coming up in September. It was strange to be reflecting on how far I've come and how far I've got to go in the middle of a race, but perhaps very fitting. It wasn't long before I recognized that we were back near Safeco Field, what a beautiful spot:

We had wide open views of the entire city and the water out in front. I love races where you get the opportunity to run where normally you'd only be allowed to drive. There's no sidewalk up there so it's not like you'd ever get the chance to take a photo like this. I knew at this point we only had about 6 or 7km left and I was still feeling good but I couldn't tell how we were doing for time because I had lost satellite reception back in the tunnel and it messed up my watch. We came down off this overpass and headed back into downtown where we saw the first marathoner go by! It's totally exciting but also kind of ridiculous that the first marathoner was going to finish faster than we were going to finish the half... but apparently we were still in good spirits (I think that's because we were at the top of a hill)!

Nikki had done this race the year prior so I was asking about what we had left and she was sure there were a couple more hills at this point I had to just buckle down and finish. I was nervous about our weird timing for the 1st 10k and I wanted to stay strong. I figured there was only one water station left and I really wanted to make that my last walk break. I was right about the last water station, after which I just wanted to be able to see the space needle because I knew that's where we were going. I swear I couldn't see it until the last kilometer at which point I had to look behind me, I was completely turned around. Sometime that's the great thing about an out-of-town race but sometimes, towards the end especially, I like to know where I am so I can decide how much to push myself. It didn't really matter because after another tunnel there was a horribly steep hill and I couldn't sprint up that. It wasn't that long of a hill but it was deadly, I hardly had anything left at the top but I saw the yellow Geico banners and knew that would be the beginning of the finish chute (the same as Portland).

And just like that, my 18th Half Marathon was done!

We finished at 2:18:24, that's a whole 10 minutes behind my current PR. Honestly I felt a little disappointed because I think we would have done a lot better if we hadn't have done intervals & water station stops for the first 10k. On the other hand I knew we had a race the following day and I decided maybe we were better for having gone a little bit slower. Our trip to Seattle was SO MUCH fun and I'd love to do this race again! As a side note if you are going to skip having a water belt, a Rock n' Roll race would be a good one to do it because there was a water station almost every kilometer.

I celebrated receiving my TWO medals (the 2nd one is the Pacific Peaks Medal for completing Seattle & Portland) by eating some leftover cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, yum!