Mainly so I remember the day here's a detailed report on my first marathon.
2006 Seattle Marathon Race Report
Two days prior to race: home in bed with nasty cold
Day before race: home in bed with nasty cold. Manage to roust only long enough to get pre-race massage and drag butt to pick up packet & chip. Am exhausted by effort to walk from car to packet pick up and back.
8pm Evening before race: Realize while laying out clothing and gear that I’m missing the strap to my heart rate/pace monitor Garmin device. Seriously debate going without data. For about a second. Drive to ProClub in hope that I have left strap in locker.
8:30pm evening before race: JOY! Have found strap and can now head home for warm bed and cold meds. Sleeping somewhat by 10 and manage to sleep/toss and turn.
3:00am race day: wake up. Is it time yet?
3:15am race day: wake up. Is it time yet?
3:22am race day: wake up. Is it time yet?
Etc. approx every 7 minutes until 5:00am race day: Get out of bed and coffee and oatmeal up while calculating splits and studiously recording them on paper to give to Scott and to carry with me so everyone will know when to expect me at specific points throughout race. Run to bathroom with ‘dicky tum’ as the Brits would say.
5:00am race day: outside temp: 39 degrees. Run to bathroom
6:00am race day: outside temp 37 degrees. Run to bathroom
7:00am race day: 35 degrees. Run to bathroom
7:05am race day: Depart house totally forgetting carefully crafted split sheets. Temp 33 degrees and snowing. Top of hill – about 1 inch of snow on ground. Decide that the head cold, snow and upset stomach all add to the drama and excitement of the day making first marathon even more special and memorable than it would have been otherwise.
7:45am: arrive at Seattle Center. Hop out of car agreeing to see Scott either at halfway point or finish line. Head to start line, hit port-a-potty and try to stay dry. Raining and quite cold. Notice lots of folks just camping out in port-a-potty stalls as occupied signs are high and turnover rate quite low. Quite a good idea actually as it’s a place to sit down out of the rain and stay a little warm. I take my time adjusting clothing and gear for a bit them head out to huddle under eaves of EMP building until start time.
8:10: Line up at start line, pretty far in the back discard ‘disposable’ pants notice the many folks lining up in trash bags. Some continue to run in them and some continue to run entire race in them as I’ll notice later. Seems like it’d be hot & sticky to me but perhaps they’ve trained in a Georgia summer and that’s comfy for them. Also notice one of several barefoot runners. I’ve heard a lot about the benefits of this approach but given the conditions today it seems really super hard-core. I’m glad for my warmish squishy shoes.
8:15: Start! Ok, here I go. Nicely numb and very unusual for me not nervous at all – must be thanks to stuffy thick head. Begin running with only the thought of “let’s see how this goes”. Pack goes out fast. Me – not so much. I start slow and get passed a lot. Pretty sure I’m near the end but afraid to look back to see if I’m totally last. Figure it’s better not to know.
Mile 1-2: Run/shuffle slowly through downtown under monorail and (I think) right past Westlake Center. Past library, down hill and onto 1-90 express lane ramp.
Mile 3-4.5: Really strange but in a good way to be running up the ramp to get on 1-90 then through the tunnel to emerge onto floating bridge. Everyone shouting and whooping through the tunnel enjoying the lack of being rained on for a few moments.
Mile 4.5-6: Begin seeing the first of the fast runners on return leg of floating bridge. See speedy fellow runners from ProClub. Cool.
Mile 6: Find port-a-potty without line. Jump in. Sweet relief! Turn around and begin heading back across 1-90. Realize I’m not last when I spot adorable older gent running just ahead of the police cars bringing up the rear. Judging by his relaxed and very fit looking manner I guess that he just likes running there for all the cheers he gets from *everyone* ahead and behind. He’s getting hoots an d high fives from everyone and is totally drinking it all in. So cool.
Mile 6-7: First episode of This American Life in my playlist ends and music starts to kick in. Feeling great and like I could run all day. Am singing along to songs and nearly dancing while running. My songs are in alpha order by title and I was on “Back in Black” so I should have realized it was WAY too early to be that wound up.
Miles 8-12: Long run out to Seward park. Feeling all right but still taking it quite easy as I’m not sure how well my body is going to keep going. Tough to stay positive when I’m seeing hundreds of people pass me going the other direction meaning they’ve already done their loop around Seward, have passed the halfway point and are headed for the home stretch. Rainy, windy, pretty cold. Trying hard to remind myself that I’m lucky to be healthy enough overall to train for and attempt this race and to just live in the experience. Hear U2’s Beautiful Day and try hard to convince myself that it’s true. Come pretty close.
Miles 12-15: Ugh. Really tired. Started to feel like total crap right about mile 12. Loop around Seward was mega-long and very lonely. Very few spectators/cheering sections on the course (not that I blame them) in general. Some lift from knowing I’ve crossed the halfway mark. Eat some chewable Tylenol in celebration. Hips, quads hurting quite a bit and bone bruise on toe quite noticeable. On the up-side shoes are holding to my heels well. No rubbing so far and the blister band-aid holding fast. Have second skin and more band-aids on board in pockets just in case.
Mile 16: Oh! There’s Scott! Happy surprise. He’s walked about a mile and a half to find me. Quick check in and he tells me that friends Aimee & Michael are underneath an overpass at mile 24 to cheer me on. Something to look forward to and right now that’s a very good thing. Hard to continue running at this point. Far more tempting to follow Scott back to the car and head off for a hot bowl of soup or something. Decide that if there’s a time to try to pick up the pace and gain some ground this is it as afer mile 20 things turn uphill and my pace will go way down. I turn up the gas a little and try to keep it there for as long as I can.
Mile 17-20: This portion of the race is a blur. I know I stopped off at another port-a-potty. I remember I was trying to keep the faster pace when I passed a time clock that said 4:33. CRAP! I thought. I was thinking I could maybe beat 5 hours and that was fueling my faster pace. Once I saw this sign I felt my motivation to go fast fade in dejected defeat and my focus shifted to just finishing. I later realized that this time clock was for the ½ marathon runners so wasn’t my actual time. Double CRAP. Had I kept the picked up pace I may have been able to beat 5hours. Moving on. I’ve run this part of the course several times in training runs so I really am able to space out. I know I have a lot yet to go and that the uphill section is ahead at mile 20. Most of the runners who are back here with me are combo runners/walkers. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who’s this slow who is still running continuously. I feel good about that as running the entire race was an important goal to me. I realize there’s training protocols that reco a run/walk combo but that doesn’t give me the sense of achievement I’m looking for. So the run/walkers and I pass, then re-pass each other hundreds of times during this part of the course.
Mile 20-24: Course turns uphill at mile 20 heading up Madison, then a brief downhill before heading up through the Arboretum and Interlaken. The downhill portion on Madison had me pretty close to crying. I’ll run uphill all day if it means I don’t have to go downhill. Ouch! Rain started again pretty heavily somewhere in here. I’m passing many walkers and really slow runners heading up these hills. At some point I pass one of the hard core barefoot runners. Emerge from the park-ish running onto Roanoke to find some angelic souls handing out KRISPY KREME doughnuts. Thank you - you wonderful, wonderful people.
Mile 23.6: I turn the corner to head down to Eastlake and under the underpass see cheering people *bouncing* and pointing. The thought occurs to me that maybe I’m at mile 24 and that those are my friends. I keep pounding my way toward them and see that they’re holding up signs or something. Closer and I see that those ARE my friends and that they’re jumping up and down cheering and are holding giant signs that say “We heart Lukasik” and “You’re doing great Christine”. I can’t believe that these are for me and that these are my wonderful and amazing friends and colleagues. They’ve been out there in the rain and cold for hours waiting for me to pass. I run up to them crying like crazy and lay a huge wet and I’m sure quite stinky hug on Aimee. She and Max run with me a while and all I can do is cry with joy. I’m so happy and so touched that they’ve come out to support me.
Mile 24-26: When the girls peel off things get very quiet. For some reason I’m completely alone for pretty much the remainder of the race. I think the hills I just came up really slowed/stopped a lot of the runners. Either way it felt very strange to be running the race alone. Overall it didn’t feel like a very well supported race to me and it was most evident here. I was running up a street and it could have been me out for a Saturday run. No markers or competitors just me running up a wet city street sidewalk. These are by far the hardest miles of the race. I haven’t run this part of the course at all in practice so I don’t have a clear picture of distances or where the course is going making it seem reeeeaallllly long. There’s some downhill portions which hurt like hell then we turn up Dexter for a bit, then turn toward Seattle Center. I know I must be getting close when I realize I can see Mercer just ahead of me. Just all of the sudden I realize that I’m just about to enter Memorial Stadium which is the finish line so I realize I’m very close to being done.
Finish: There’s barriers to hold back the 10s of screaming fans from the finish chute and all the emotion hits me all at once. I spot Scott and my wonderful friend Shelley standing out in the cold rain waiting for me. When I see their cheering faces I start crying again –ugly sobbing cry and am holding my hand to my face to try to hold it together when Scott snapped the photo below. I cross the finish line, they greet me and I feel SO GREAT! They’re asking me how I’m feeling and I just feel FANTASTIC. Nothing hurts and I’m just thrilled and shocked to be done. In that moment the entire race seems as though it has happened in the span of a few moments and not the hours of pain that I just worked though.
Post Race: I change, get a quick onsite massage and we head for home. Stop for some Thai takeout, I come home to a looong hot shower and relax for the rest of the day. I still feel as thought I was in a time warp as it’s suddenly evening and I’m not sure how the entire day passed. I’m thrilled that I was able to do it and feel very peaceful.
It’s a few days later and the soreness is nearly all gone and overall I feel great. Looking forward to just being active in a bunch of different areas for a while. I’m going to add a second spinning class to my weekly schedule, likely a swim and finally be able to do a kickboxing class fresh without having run a 10 mile hill repeat that morning. Then in January Aimee and I begin the ProClub triathlon team so It’ll be fun to start to add on biking and swimming ahead of the run. Not sure if I’ll do another marathon but it’s certainly possible. Now that I know I can do it it’s getting a bit tempting to do one again in a year and see how much improvement I can achieve.
Either way, many many thanks to everyone who has supported me on this journey. I’ve been truly humbled by the amount of positive support I’ve received from friends, colleagues, family and fellow athletes. It’s been an incredible journey and I’m so thrilled that you’ve all been with me along the way.
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