Travel With Mel

I really wanted to like this race.  A few years ago I paced the second half of the marathon and felt bad for those who ran the whole thing.  There were a lot of hills and even one within the last half mile.  I remember commenting on the course just before a guy behind us threw up.

This year the course had been altered to run across 520 and a few of us were jazzed about that.  From the elevation map, the east rise of 520 looked to be the longest hill so I thought they finally had a winner of a course. I was dead WRONG.  Apparently there are some pretty nasty hills in Bellevue (I run up Kamber once a week and these are much worse) and I faced them starting in mile 6.

The day (June 29, 2008) was exceptionally warm.  I don't fault the organizers for that but because of their poor planning, the race start was delayed at least 15 minutes.   Those 15 minutes matter as the sun is beating down and warming up the asphalt.  The problem was clearly the logistics of transporting people from the finish line in Bellevue to Seattle.  I'm not sure if transporting family had anything to do with that, but I really can't believe the race committee allowed family on the busses when they had no prior experience with transporting people.  I anticipated this would be a problem and arranged for my own transportation. (Thanks Richard!)  There were athletes late to the start and some missed the start.  The race committee offered to donate half the money for those who missed the start to a local charity, which I find offensive. They (the race committee) should refund the athletes who missed their race as a result instead of just donating money for them.

As if it couldn't get much worse than warm weather and a hilly course, the water stops were a mess.  Several of them were not prepared for the crowd and I hear one even ran out of cups.  I know preparing for the rush of people is difficult and the day was hot, but I think better planning and preparation could go into training the volunteers.  I do thank the volunteers who were there since I know it's not easy!

My last complaint (and I swear I'm done!) is that the event was planned to conflict with the Shore Run, an annual event with a history much longer than the Seafair marathon.  Next year, I'm running the shore run!