Seattle Marathon course saves the worst (and hilliest) for last

By Monte Enbysk

Crosscut By 2: With the big race two days away, a veteran participant previews the course, and the pain, that lies ahead.

Editor's note: Monte Enbysk, an experienced (but not elite) runner, was thrown off his Seattle Marathon training schedule by an injury last month. He's chronicling his comeback effort and — if he makes it — his race day for Crosscut. His previous installments are available here.

I’m indeed running the Seattle Marathon on Sunday. Six weeks ago, I was very unsure about it, due to a leg injury I thought might completely derail my training. I tried but could not run without pain for 10 days. When I started running again, I wasn’t sure I could do the mileage needed to be fit enough for a marathon.

I am undertrained, but have completed at least one run in excess of 20 miles and three others of more than 15 miles. I usually like to have many more long runs under my belt, as I’ve said, but this will have to do. I feel I got back on track with three weeks of training left, and have completed all my runs since then without re-injuring my leg. My last pre-training run was a five-miler on Thursday.

So even if I’m not fully trained, I will go into Sunday’s likely cold, wet run at full strength (unless, say, I twist my ankle taking out the garbage or something; knock on wood). So bring it on! And KZOK and KJAQ, please play some high-energy running music on Sunday; please no Pink Floyd!

The Seattle Marathon course (PDF map) is one of the hardest I’ve ever run. The hardest ones I’ve run are two different Seafair Marathon courses that roamed through the hilly Eastside, but the Seattle Marathon course ranks next because of its last six miles. After a mostly flat 20 miles, you leave the east Seattle shoreline and climb big hills to the Arboretum, where the terrain twists and rolls until you are back downtown. Getting to the finish line inside Memorial Stadium is equal parts exhilaration and relief.

I’ve run the Seattle Marathon three times before and I’ve run the Seattle Half-Marathon (essentially one-half the full marathon course) four times, so I feel I know the course pretty well. Here is my review of it:

The start: You’re at Fifth Avenue and Harrison Street in front of the Seattle Center, in a sea of people spilling over the street and parking lots. Twice as many people run the half as the full, so the marathon start is a bit less crowded. But there are never enough Porta Potties. And parking close by is harder and harder to find. The start has a rock-concert feel, with runners full of energy and caffeine and eager to get going.

Mile 1: You ascend Fifth to start, and the first mile marker is just past Union Street. By this time, Fifth has crested and you are starting to descend. I’m just waking up. It’s still early. My wakeup call is that there are 25 miles left.

Miles 2-4: Runners have to funnel into narrow pedestrian lanes along I-90, and the lanes get crowded. Around Mile 3 last year, I stumbled over an unexplained piece of cement in the roadway, and fell on my face. It was more embarrassing than anything, as runners around me wondered if my race day might be over. I just picked myself up, thanked them all, and kept running. Mile 3 leads east into the Mount Baker tunnel, where runners can spread out onto the freeway and where some runners whoop it up because they aren’t feeling any pain yet. After Mile 4 is the big break: Marathoners go straight, half-marathoners turn right.

Miles 5-6: You leave the tunnel and hit the I-90 bridge en route to the turnaround on Mercer Island. The bridge has a downhill on the Seattle side, a flat stretch, and then an uphill to Mercer Island, but the hills are mostly benign. Slow runners get to see their faster counterparts who have already turned around and are heading west.

Miles 7-8: You turn around on I-90 in a Mercer Island tunnel, then head back west. I remember my first Seattle Marathon in 2003, after I’d turned around I looked up to my left and saw three men along the upper shoulder, backs to me, taking a very public leak. When you gotta go, you gotta go. In this stretch, if you are running a decent pace, you see the slowest runners going east to the turnaround. If you are running slowly yourself, you see walkers, or people limping.

Miles 9-11: Runners leave I-90 and turn south onto Lake Washington Boulevard en route to the halfway point at Seward Park. This is a flat stretch of the race where you can cruise. Again, faster runners are going north when I’m going south. I remember seeing perennial winner Uli Steidl running effortlessly and nearly five miles ahead of me in 2006.

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