Seattle Ghost Marathon

Killer Beast Poised to Attack

Our day started early with Rick and Jenny meeting us at 6:00AM. Our first stop was the local Starbucks for some coffee. Rick made the mistake of actually ordering a cup of coffee instead of some fancy schmancy double tall, no whip, soy mocha, extra hot drink. It took ten minutes for them to brew a pot for him. I should have used this time to drive back to my house and pick up my Garmin which I forgot but instead we all headed back to the house so I could pick it up. Always one person like that in the carpool. Unfortunately it had to be me.

As it turned out we ended up arriving at Seward Park in Seattle with plenty of time to spare. We had very little oxygen left in the car because Jenny was very talkative on the drive. I put every piece of clothing that I had brought with me on and we walked up the Mt. Baker Park about half a mile from the Seward Park parking lot. Michelle, Jenny, and I were running the marathon and Rick volunteered to work an aid station. He made that decision when I jokingly told him he was not tough enough to run the Seattle Ghost Marathon. So much for pushing his buttons.

Beavers

At the start we headed toward Seward Park and ran around the loop in a clockwise direction. We came out of the park and ran along the lake on Lake Washington Blvd. When I ran the Mayors Marathon up in Anchorage Alaska last year I saw two moose in the first three miles of the run. I saw two beavers in Lake Washington in the first few miles of today's run. The last time I saw a wild beaver was up in Canada when I was kayaking the Chilliwak River Gorge. I was nearly killed when it dropped a tree in front of me which my boat flipped under and was trapped on the branches. Luckily the water was deep enough so I could roll out and float down stream. Ever since my brush with death I've held deep hatred for the furry little beasts.

I've been thinking about setting a trap line along the lake and starting a beaver hat business. I'll need to check into the local laws to see what kind of hoops the city will make me jump through to get this business off the ground. Of course I'll need to raise some venture capital to provide seed money for payroll, computer, Internet, office space, trap lines, and such.

Ahh but I digress. I ran an easy pace averaging around 9:30 up to mile 16 when I kicked it up a notch. At the finish my average pace for the race was 8:35 with the last mile at 6:33. I was attempting to catch Van Phan but I ended up finishing behind her by about 8 feet. She heard me coming up behind her and she started laughing and picked up her pace so I couldn't catch her. The RD apparently made some mathematical errors when he wheeled the course because many of us with Garmins came up with a consistent 25 miles or 1.2 miles shy of a full marathon. Both Van and I ran separate directions but did an out and back to make up the missing distance. Michelle and Jenny also added the missing mile to the end of their run.

>Van cooling her jets

With the course being a double out and back loop you get the opportunity to see many if not all of the participants of the race. We had a fun day. Many of the Marathon Maniacs were going to run the Seattle Marathon tomorrow for a back to back double. I think I'll stay home and paint my office.

Nice work to Ray, Linda, Margaret B, Margaret G., Lisa O., Jenny, Jon, Jess, Janet, tc, and the many other runners out there today.