Seattle Marathon 2009

First attempt for "double" was completed with a success and I got the 4th Maniac star.

Getting up early again to catch a ferry was a hard part after running a marathon one day earlier. As I was stretching and warming up at the start line with a lot of other marathoners, surprisingly I felt very strong.

I decided to start a little bit faster not to be stuck by slow runners in front. When I watched my Garmin at mile 3, I was running 6:30/mi. It was way too fast to keep up with through out the race. What I needed was very consistent pace. I slowed down my pace to the range between 8:10 and 8:20 from that point.

Next 5~6 miles flew very quickly on I-90 section. Lake Washington Blvd section was simply flat and I already ran yesterday for the most of it. I didn't have big problem to keep the pace there, although my legs and knees were getting more and more tired.

On the hill of Madison St (Mile 21), I had to take a short walk break for about 1 min and then ran down the hill to catch up some time. Undulation in Arboretum section slowed me down as I had to face the reality of my body condition.

However, getting out of Arboretum with Space Needle within the sight, I had only 3 miles to finish my double so I pushed myself hard to finish strong.

My finish time: 3 hr 55 min with 1:52 - 2:03 split.

It was one of the big mile stones that I set when I decided to run a full marathon last year. Seeing and chatting with the 2008 marathon maniac of the year, Larry Macon, who ran 105 marathons last year was another big inspiration to continue my running adventures.