Seattle Locks 1/2 Marathon 2017 recap

Every January there is a great little race in Seattle that I love running called the Seattle Locks Marathon, ½ Marathon. It 's free (they take donations) caps at 150 runners and is a bare bones type of race where you carry your own aide, roads aren’t closed and the finish line food is amazing.

You might think that would be a turn off, and it probably is for some, but I like it. I like low key events, and I like finish line food.

The weather was pretty perfect for running. It wasn’t raining…it wasn’t freezing and it was the perfect temperature for running.



Left to Right: Martinho, Me, David, Dennis, and Bobbie

The route starts with a little over a mile of downhill running, which is awesome until you remember that the course is an “out and back”. We run along the Burke-Gilman Trail for the majority of the race, which is really pretty and helps avoid street crossings, or getting lost. They mark the course with little orange arrows that I found really easy to follow.

This is when I was young and full of hope, and wasn't trying to convince myself that I wasn't going hurl.
I also would like to give a shout out to Comer Photos for this awesome shot!

The front runners get a little stretched out so I decided to break out the play list again. Don’t worry, I made sure that I took out the sermons beforehand. But…apparently I did something else to the play list because instead of being on “shuffle” it was on “repeat forever and ever” and the song that it chose was Ashley Simpsons “Pieces of me” (No judging. It has the right BPM). Once I got it off THAT song, it got stuck on Emeli Sande “Hurt” and after THAT Eminem’s “Lose yourself”. Since each time I got it to switch to a new song, meant I had to stop running and pull my phone out to mess with it, I just decided to deal with it. I mean, there are worse songs. (News flash…I changed my mind about that decision and just turned everything off at about mile 10.)

At some point before the turn around I turned off my Garmin. I didn’t notice until a couple of miles after the turn around when I glanced down. By that time something was going on with my stomach. The Mama Chia squeeze packets I was eating wasn’t sitting well and I was wearing my compression tights which was…compressing. It slowed me down a little, because…feeling like you’re going to puke slows you down. I was really trying to stay ahead of this one lady that I had been yo-yoing through the race and was doing an OK job of it, but I didn’t have much of a lead. I could tell she was tired though, and I’m pretty good on hills. We hit the last 200 meters which is completely uphill and I felt mentally strong and knew I could keep my pace up.

My nemesis:)

Then I coughed.

Did you know that coughing is a really similar to puking? Well, it is.

I threw up three times.

SO lame.

Plus, that lady passed me AND two more.

200 meters from the finish line, and my hands are on my knees and I’m puking up Mama Chia. (Which is surprisingly easy to throw up.)  

Don’t worry. I sucked it up and finished the race. 6^th woman overall, which isn’t too shabby.