Matt and I got a surprise weekend away this past weekend. My parents and Matt’s parents offered to watch our daughter so we could take off, just the two of us. Of course we snapped that offer right up!
We had to decide where to go though. We wanted to hike somewhere pretty and I needed to get at least 15 miles in on Sunday. Fortunately the weather was beautiful no matter where you went in the Pacific Northwest this past weekend.
At first I thought maybe we should go to Bend, but I needed to get a long run in and it’s always easier to long run in another town when part of your long run can include a race. As a runner, currently training for another marathon this spring, of course races played a part in my decision! There was a 10K in Bend this past Sunday, but then I heard about a half marathon in Kirkland. A Half Marathon! I haven’t run one of those in almost a year AND I’d only have to run a couple more miles to get my long run in.
Then Matt said he’d run the half marathon too. I was surprised. He’s only been running again for a couple weeks. And his longest run was 6 miles. But he has been hiking, so that counts for something. I signed us up and booked a hotel and we were on our way north as soon as I got off work and squeezed a quick three miles in on Friday.
Our hotel room had lots of windows and faced east, so we weren’t able to sleep in too late on Saturday. Which was good because we chose to go to Wallace Falls for a hike. Wallace Falls is very pretty, a fairly easy hike, and not too far outside of the Seattle area, which makes it quite popular. By the time we got back to the trail head from our quick hike, it was getting really crowded. And it was only noon!
Here are some pictures:
Wallace Falls trail runs along the river and there is a series of three falls, creatively named Lower, Middle, and Upper. Ha! It was a beautiful day and a nice 5.5 mile (speed) hike. We tried to stroll along leisurely, but really can’t. It’s hard for us to hike a normal pace.
We went into Kirkland that afternoon to check out where we needed to go for the start of the half marathon and got a big surprise: Kirkland is really hilly! There really aren’t any flat areas in Kirkland. The race website didn’t have a course elevation and I naively assumed it would be similar to the Seattle Half Marathon and Marathon, which both start on a downhill and boast a series of short inclines at the end, but are mostly flat or rolling.
The Kirkland Half Marathon course is a roller coaster. I started laughing in an “I can’t believe it/this is so crazy” way as we drove into town and saw that we were going to be climbing and descending some big hills. What had I signed us up for?!?!
Well, I was definitely going to have to think about how I could practice averaging goal marathon pace on this course. It would take some strategy. My goal marathon pace is 7:40 minute miles, which should put me at a 3:20 finish. So, if I ran a half marathon at GMP, I’d finish in 1:40. That was my goal. I decided not to run a warm up, but to tack on 2 miles at the end. I would be able to drink some water, pee if I had to, turn around and run back up the course to meet Matt. And if he finished in the two hours he thought, I’d only run about a mile until I met him. I was thinking about running 17 or 20, but after I saw the town of Kirkland, which is lovely by the way, and the race course, I decided to only do 15. 15 miles of hills would be just as good.
We got to the race early enough to get a nice parking spot and picked up our bib numbers and shirts. We also got some gu samples. Here I am before the start:
Everything was very organized at this race. There was water and gatorade out before the race and the events started on time. The director kept telling us it was going to be hot out there and I had to laugh because it was only in the 50s at the start and would be in the 60s at the finish.
We started the race climbing. We climbed and then turned a corner and I saw a steep hill. I said “oh hello!” out loud and people started laughing at me. I told them I had never been to Kirkland before and just saw the elevation of the course last night. They laughed some more. I laughed too because the elevation chart I had frantically found in a google search the night before did NOT do this course justice at all. I also laughed because this was going to be fun in a way that only running up and down hills can be.
The course is actually very pretty. Even the residential areas and the section of industrial area we ran through were nice because I could look over my shoulders and see Lake Washington and the Olympics. It was a beautiful day. I was in a good mood because I was running a new race, having fun, and sticking to my plan of just averaging 7:40 minute miles. Several times I was very glad I wasn’t racing this course because that would be painful. I was feeling good sticking to my plan to average 7:40 minute miles and not trashing my legs. The hills were taking a lot out of some people. I kept passing people from mile 8 on. Mile 8 includes a steep descent and I wasn’t bombing downhill like I would have done if I was racing for real, but I still passed people in this mile.
I kept wondering how Matt was doing. And I felt bad because I hadn’t bothered to research the elevation before we got there. Ooops. There was one flat spot: a bridge we ran across at the very end.
I ended up finishing the 13.1 miles (the course was exact even though I thought it was going to be long) in 1:40:18. Do not ask me how I did it exactly in the time I wanted. Sometimes things just work out for me. I had a crazy plan in my head, but it wasn’t exact. It was more like stay around 8 minute miles for the uphills and around 7:30 minute miles for the not as hilly areas and not faster than 7 minute miles for the downhills.
I got my medal, drank a mini Jamba Juice, and grabbed a water bottle then turned around to meet Matt. I met him about a mile from the finish and he looked good. Really. I could tell that he was not feeling the greatest, but that was expected because he randomly decided to run this after only running for a couple weeks. I ran with him across the finish because they had already cut my timing chip off my shoe so I didn’t have to worry about messing my time up. His official finish time was 2:02:32! He’s a beast. I know. Two or three weeks of running and then this. His legs aren’t even that sore today.
Matt after finishing the race:
So yes, it was a fun morning. Lots of hills. The Kirkland Half Marathon makes the Portland Shamrock 15K look like a walk in the park. I’d definitely run the Kirkland Half Marathon again.
I have another 45 mile week ahead of me. And the Portland Rock and Roll Half Marathon (I’ll again be using this race as a training run with 4 additional miles tacked on to make 17 miles total). I’m curious to see how Rock and Roll does in Portland.
Angie blogs. 