BlogJuly 1, 2009 Seattle half marathon As of a few weeks ago I'm now working with PF Chang's Bistro as one of my sponsors! As a sponsor of all the Rock n Roll Marathon events, I'm now getting to travel to race/work/represent PF Chang's at these events! This is so exciting for me, and my first event this past Saturday was incredible. On the Thursday before the race I flew to Seattle to work two days at the expo and enjoy the city. I did a little swim in the Westin pool in Seattle and a little cycling on the exercise bikes in the gym, but for the most part I was in full-taper mode. Saturday morning arrived, I woke up early and caught the 5:00 am race shuttle out to the event start line by the airport. I hung out with some of the pro runners until about ten minutes before the start when we went over to the corral to get ready to run. I felt ok, normally a half marathon is a hard event but I knew that with my decent fitness I could have a lot of fun. The course was rolling and there were tough hills at miles 4 and 9. I hoped to go out steady and try to run as smoothly as possible without wasting energy. I had a brand new pair of Spira Stinger racing flats for the day, bright yellow! The gun fired, and along with 25,000 other runners, we took off toward downtown! Three dudes went out really hard, maybe 4:30 pace, nobody seemed to care much. I settled into a big group at the front and felt comfortable. Through the first mile in 4:55, it seemed surprisingly easy... Through 5k I stayed with this group and realized I was running with a lot of elite runners. Probably nobody around me was over 140 pounds. Around 6k we hit a slight rise and I think my massive upper-body and bulging biceps kept me from attacking the climb like the others. I lost 20 meters, but as the hill leveled off I didn't continue to lose time, I think my power to weight ratio just wasn't as good as the elite runners. At mile 4.5 two dudes from behind caught and past me on the steep climb. We talked for a minute, they told me they usually run around 5:00 pace for the duration but that today may be a little slower because this was a tough course. Toward the top of the hill they pulled away and I told them... "Don't feel too good about droppin' me guys, I'm just a tri-geek!" to which one replied,"hey, I do tris too, but I sure don't swim well!" This gave me positive energy for the descent down to the lake and I kept those two in sight as I soldiered on. This part of the course was awesome as every little bit there were big groups of people cheering, lots of cheer-leading squads and enthusiastic volunteers. Mile 9, a couple more guys passed me. We ran up the mile 9 hill and they hung a right as they were elite marathoners, I was still the tri-geek doing the 13.1 mile half marathon, my route took me left. Through the tunnel I went, it was about half a mile long. A band played at the end of the tunnel and the echo was incredibly loud! Through mile 11 I could see the two runner dudes in the distance, I was holding on! I also could now see the finish area and somewhere around mile 12 could hear the race announcer. I kept running strong to the finish line and crossed the banner in 1 hour 10 minutes! From an effort perspective, I wished that I had given a little more. I actually kept jogging right into my cool down. This didn't upset me too much though, because I know I only have what??? 8 more of these half marathons to do over the coming months? I'll have my chance again to give effort. Now I'm doing some big tris through July, and my next PF Chang's event will be the Chicago Half Marathon on August 2. Thanks so much to Mark Mumford and Derek Panfil at Chang's for allowing me to do these events, along with Shannon Williams as she made my weekend an awesome experience! I'm in Santa Monica now, just doing some nice summer training, I may race the Will Rodgers 10k this weekend or do the Carlsbad Sprint Triathlon. Have a Happy 4th! Updates to come soon! Cheers, Lewis « Back to Blogs |
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