I have taken a bit of a summer hiatus from writing... not from running though.
Coming back with a review of a terrific Half Marathon I participated in recently. See Jane Run is a race series that visits many cities across our country. On July 14th, 2013 the See Jane Run Race Series was in Seattle.
My friend Carrie and I had signed up! Carrie for the 5K distance and I had signed up for Half Marathon. (You might have seen Carrie in some of my other race posts and will see her in future posts... she is a friend and is also training to participate in the Tinkerbell Half Marathon Weekend at Disneyland in January 2014. You can read about my experiences at Tink Weekend in January of 2013 here, here, and here.)
We made our way down to Seattle on Saturday the 13th to attend the Race Expo. The Expo was held at a downtown hotel called the "W" Hotel. Originally I had planned to make a family day of it and attend the Expo together. A few days prior our plans changed and Carrie and I decided to just go down without our families. I am so glad we did that. The Expo was MUCH smaller than I had anticipated. We had our bibs and shirts in about 5 minutes and were able to shop through the other booths quite quickly... seriously it took us about 10 minutes to see everything. I didn't expect it to be like a runDisney run Expo but I did expect it to be bigger then it was. Oh well. Our tech shirts that we received for participating were really nice quality and a great color too. This is a photo of the front of the shirt.
Carrie and I had also decided that driving all the way home on Saturday and then rising early on Sunday morning for the races would be much easier to execute if we were staying a bit closer to the action so we had made hotel reservations just a little north of Seattle to make our Sunday morning go a little more smoothly. It was awesome! After we had done our quick Expo stop we headed back up to our hotel and did a little shopping at the mall. Both Carrie and I have busy young families so shopping with just the two of us with no children was a rare treat.
After our restful night at the hotel we were up early and headed south to Gas Works Park in Seattle for the Bag check and the start. The weather was awesome and it staged the day to be great! Below are some great shots we took prior to the race start.
There were quite a few people there and participating so as you can see from Carrie's photo ablove the lines for the porta pottys were long... but quick. The 5K had 509 participants (502 females and 7 men)... The Half Marathon had 1,002 participants (976 females and 26 men)... obviously a race that was geared mostly towards women. The Half Marathon began at 8am... soon it was time to line up and hear the start gun. There were no formal corrals but they did have volunteers holding "wave signs" to have people line up with the appropriate sign that lined up with your anticipated minute per mile pace. After the elites took off - it seemed it was a free for all... The second wave just kept going and I hope the 3 volunteers holding the wave signs didn't get carried away. This Half course was beautiful and fairly flat. The 5K start was at 8:30am and followed a bit of the same course as the first 3 miles of the Half course. Here are some shots from the Half course.
The Half Marathon course basically circled Lake Union with sweeping views of Seattle and the Space Needle. The finish line was back at Gas Works Park and was spectacular! At the finish I received my finisher medal...
Carrie had run the 5K so she had been waiting for me (in the shade) at the Post Race Expo. They had lots of fun things to see and do post race! They had a photo booth that was FREE with props and fun!
Besides the finisher medals and shirts... we also received a champagne glass with the See Jane Run logo etched on it. And... they had a little fenced off "garden" area with one glass of free champagne for each participant!
Here are some photos to end it... definitely a race I would LOVE to do again!
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