Seattle Seafair Torchlight 8K Recap

Every year Seattle has an event called Seafair. It's a month-long, that brings an entire community together in celebration. They have a series of events & parades during Seafare.

Seattle's Best Happy Hour is the 8K & 5K fun run which has 3,700+ runners. The course goes along the famous parade route(that takes place right after the fun run) so there are thousands of spectators during the first 3 miles in the race. There's a pirate adventure costume contest (I didn't dress in costume), and a post race bash including a beer garden with live entertainment. The race is televised live on Seattle's local news channel :)

This race is a lot of fun to be in. Although it wasn't my best performance :/

Here are the following reasons why:

1. Ate junk food most of the day prior to the race. (And week prior, I'm living in a hotel at the moment waiting for military housing to be available)

2. Didn't hydrate at all through out the day. Had a killer headache before the race.

3. Overestimated myself and went into the 7/8 minute per mile group. I run 9 min miles.

4. Ran my fastest mile during the first mile!

5. Didn't preview the course. (NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WAS GOING TO BE HILLS) LOL

6. Only ran once within the two weeks prior to this event.

7. Did I mention I there were hills that I did not prepare for!!

8k Race Recap - - - - -

Time 48:21

Average Pace - 9:44

I placed 86 out of 227 in my age division (25-29F) & 1136 out of 2128 overall.

My Splits: Negative splits are good to have. There is a reason why they tell you to pace yourself in the beginning. Obviously I didn't do that. Lesson learned!!

Mile 1- 7:57 (This might even be a personal record for me per mile, I'll have to check)

Mile 2-8:41

Mile 3-9.07

Mile 4-10:41

Mile 5-11:27

Runners getting in place for the start.

MILE 1 - At the start of the race there was a bit of a decline. I am normally pretty good when it comes to pacing myself. During this race I overestimated myself and ran with the big dawgs. I jumped in with the 7 to 8 minute mile group when I normally run a 9 min mile. As we were running downhill I ran way to fast trying to hang with the other runners I started with. Right after we ran down a hill, we had to go up a damn hill. Oh boy I was not prepared for that. I ran my fastest mile during the FIRST mile. BIG MISTAKE. I tried to slow down but I just couldn't. I felt like I was in a groove I couldn't get out of.

MILE 2 - When mile 2 came I was surprised I was still running. I tried my best to pace myself when all I really wanted to do was walk! The junk food I've been eating the past month didn't help me either. I felt like I was running with a few added extra pounds. Oh, and we ran up another hill. It was just a slight incline but my legs were feeling it.

Mile 3 - I believe in the picture above is mile 3. This is when I took a short walking break. Up a head is another incline. Once I got over the incline I had to walk again.

Mile 4 - Some where up ahead is mile 4. At mile 4 I finally felt like my legs could move again! Then...

BAM!!! I hit a brick wall. I tried jogging up the hill but I walked, struggling for each step praying this would be the last hill. But...

Another hill happened. This would be the last hill and final stretch. Right up this hill is the finish line! OMG No one told me about the hills! Gosh, this was probably the hardest 5 miles I have ever run. I'm not use to hills. And I'm all signed up for Big Sur Marathon in April 2012 which has a bunch of rolling hills and 2 MILE CLIMB! LOL

The pictures below were taken by my husband. We didn't stay for the parade. My legs were DONE!

My cheerleaders!