Lake Sammamish Half Marathon

Today was race day!  We picked up my dad and left around 7 since the race was supposed to start at 8:30 and was in Redmond. We got to our exit and saw it was BACKED UP.  Like forever.  We pulled out of the stopped line and went to the next exit.  The line was like a mile long on the freeway, but the next exit was completely free and just led you to the opposite entrance of Marymoore Park where we were headed. SCORE!  You could also see all the circus tents since Cirque du Soliel was there for the month.

It was a little foggy, but you could see the sun was going to burn it off soon.  It wasn't too hot out, and when you were active, it wasn't too cold either, perfect weather for a race!

There were almost 2,000 people there.  The bathroom lines were so backed up, even with like 20 honey buckets and of course Sawyer had to pee.  Luckily Andy found a line that looked like they were mostly parents and asked if he could cut ahead and they were happy to let him go first.  Since he was sick and started slipping into old habits, it was not ideal to tell him to just "pee in his pull up" so we got lucky.  He then took his place in the crowd, even though it was quite a bit past 8:30, I think they were taking that huge line into account.

Getting ready

The bikers to lead the pack

Finally, they were off!

The 3 of us got back in the car and went to go find the finish, which was 13.1 miles away.  We had a couple hours so we took our time.  The road goes along the trail, so a few minutes of driving let us get a peek at Andy on the way, who was pretty easy to spot.  After we passed the pack, we kept driving and about twice the distance away already were the leaders.  There were 2 guys and a girl that were so fast they got their own bike riders since they were apart from everyone else. (We later found the winner finished in 1:13 which is a 5:35 minute per mile pace...YIKES!)  We decided to stop at mcdonalds to get a little food and wait.  We left as we saw the faster pack had finally caught up since we knew we needed to park first.  The end was at Lake Sammamish state park and luckily we have a discover pass!  We headed toward the finish line to wait for Andy.

I spot yellow!  Shirt? Check. Hat? Check. Socks? Check.  It's him!

 

YAY!  The clock said 2:09, but it took him awhile to get to the starting line.  His official chip time was 2:06:27!  Average time was 2:07:34 so he beat the average time.  His place was 970 out of 1,737. I am proud of him because he was trying to get under 2 1/2 hours and got pretty close to the 2 hour mark instead.  Also because most of the people there were those super thin only muscle long legged people that Andy probably had like at least 70 lbs on them lol.  We gathered up our stuff and a few freebies and headed out.

Next stop for me, my cousin Anna's bridal shower. I was like 45 minutes late, but I didn't miss anything.

My cousin Peter's daughter Lily had a napkin mask and was cracking me up as she introduced herself to everyone as "Tucky, the ninja turtle."

I think she was enjoying the attention while it lasts because her new baby sister Emily was born yesterday!