Have fun running the marathon and be nice to the girls!

 

Jason told me he's going to wear extra short shorts to motivate the ladies to catch up to him.

 

Thanks Steve...I'll be thinking of you guys as I run this one. With Mark as motivation, I'll be running faster than ever.

RB, well, I've got a lady waiting in the wings so I might have to fight those ladies off. I might as well wear baggy sweats. That'd drive them away for sure.

BTW, Bosco aka Josh will be doing this with me as well.

 

Heheeh! We'd be there with camera's ready!

 

JT, I've got a couple friends running tomorrow as well and will be there to cheer them along. I'll keep an eye out for you guys. Hopefully, you will be sans short-shorts.

 

Have fun Jason!

 

Jason, good luck in whatever it is you are doing this weekend! It was really great to talk to you today.

 

Good luck JT - have a super fun run! Party at the Rock & Roll afterwards!

 

GOOD LUCK, JASON! We'll be rooting for you!

 

What a run! Both Josh and I had a heck of a time this morning! Today is Josh's birthday so it was a great way to get things off to a start so I thought. We were planning to leave at 5 am to catch the shuttle from the finish line to the start line which was to run up until 6 am. The race would start at 7 am but it was kind of doubtful because there were about 25,000 participants for Seattle's first Rock n' Roll half/full marathon. But Josh overslept! He didn't get moving until about 5:35 am which would've made it impossible for us to get to the shuttles in time from Bellevue. His fiancee was nice enough to drive us both down to Tukwila where the starting line was. The roads were jam packed even all the way onto 405 that some folks were getting out and running. We stayed for a bit until about a mile to the starting line. We both got out and ran but they still hadn't even started and it was about 7:15 am. We'd made it. We got into the "corral" which because of the massive size was being split up into 75 groups! They would have staggered starting "waves" with 40 seconds split between each corral. Josh and I joined the line at "corral 18" just in the proverbial nick of time because they were starting to move!

Neither one of us had really trained much for this race. I trained some and Josh didn't train at all but we'd both planned to take it easy as not to burn ourselves out. We ran at a 10-11 minute per mile pace but it was really easy to get caught in it all because there were just simply SO many folks all around us! You'd look ahead and back and see a sea of runners as far as the eye can see. This was especially stunning on hills going up/down. The terrain itself wasn't too bad with only a few steep points going upwards and downwards. I think it was harder on me going downwards keeping my speed in check. They had bands playing at every mile point along with cheerleaders cheering us all on. And of course all the thousands of spectators too! It was really cool getting into the spirit of it all all on a beautiful day. We had the sun rising up in the distance which kept us warm and provided us with a nice scenic backdrop all along the route. The best part was when we were running along Seward Park, Josh spotted a Bald Eagle resting on one of the branches above. Quite a few runners stopped to look, take pictures and point. We did too and then when we were running, we both spotted the eagle soaring up high above the lake in the distance obviously looking for its prey down below. It continued to soar above us along the route briefly before disappearing. Now that was cool! I truly wish I brought my camera along but I had to travel light. Later on, both Josh and I made one final push as we crossed the finish line down at Qwest Field. We'd seen thousands and thousands of specatators, runners, volunteers, officials, etc everywhere. We'd finished the race together in 2 hours and 37 minutes after vowing to stick together throughout.

Afterwards, we headed over to Zippy's to get some of their famous burgers! We were STARVED! What a day, what a run and what an experience!

 

Good job you too and happy birthday Josh. I hope you gu ys showered

 

We needed to keep that MANLY smell for a while so no we didn't. Kidding!

Of course I showered!

 

LOL at my thread I didn't see this one. Congrats to all that completed their goals today!

 

Sounds like a lot of fun with all those people cheering you on. I would definitely need that to run a marathon!

 

PM me when you do your next one. I'd like to give it a try again. It's been about 9 years since I ran my last one just before I got out. The Marine Corps 1/2 marathon. It was a great course and pretty flat. Not sure how I'd do running on the hills around here.....