Lake Sammamish Half Marathon

Ladies and gentleman, I have proof that I am getting faster!  I completed the Lake Sammamish Half Marathon in 1:44:46 on Saturday.  For frame of reference, my time for the same race in 2013 was 1:58:22.  That’s an improvement of 13 minutes, 36 seconds.  Not only is it a personal record, it’s also validation that my hard work is paying off!

The weather cooperated perfectly for the race.  It was a beautiful sunrise as we drove over to Redmond at 6:00AM (lovely shades of purple, pink, yellow, and orange over the water and mountains), and it didn’t start raining until we were driving home afterward.  The course was flat (hooray!), and it took us from Marymoor Park to Lake Sammamish State Park with pretty scenery surrounding us for most of the way.   About 30% of the run was on gravel surface, and 70% was on pavement. 

The Lake Sammamish Half Marathon came right in the midst of marathon training for me—with my most recent long run spanning 17 miles.  I’ve been having shin pain recently, but my shins gave me surprisingly little trouble during the run.  My legs (especially my quads) started to feel tired near the end of the race, but I felt really good overall.  Issac and I ran the first 9 miles (or so) together, which is another sign that I’m getting faster because he used to leave me in his dust!  My fastest miles were 6 and 7 (7:52 and 7:54, respectively), and my slowest mile was 12 (8:34). 

Here are my stats for the race: official finish time= 1:44:46, pace per mile= 8:00 (8-minute-miles right on the nose!); place in my division= 48 out of 426; place out of female finishers= 110 out of 1,150; and place overall= 327 out of 1,785 finishers.  Rumor has it that the course was 0.2 miles too short, which would mean my actual pace would be 8:07 per mile.  This would still be a 13.1-mile PR for me by several minutes, so I’ll take it!


Here I am at the crowded start line, excited to get moving!

Race photos are never flattering (how do they always manage to capture images at the perfect angle to make everyone look wiiiiiiiiide?!), but I like this picture of me and Issac because we are completely in unison with our stride.   Look at our feet-- we are in sync!



I was very content with the race.  In fact, I was so happy at the finish line that I snapped a picture of the computer screen displaying my official finish time.

Perhaps I’ll make Lake Sammamish an annual tradition.  Who knows—maybe next year I’ll have increased even more in speed?!