Celebrating Dave's 2x50th (bday+marathons) and clockworks pacing with David - Amica Seattle Half Marathon RR

Over the American thanksgiving long weekend, the Seattle Marathon marked a very special and social occasion. A group of 30+ of us from Vancouver, BC toed the line for this race to support our friend Dave Papineau's legendary journey to finishing his 50th marathon on his 50th b-day. The idea of 30+ of us running the marathon together was going to be epic!!

Despite having this race one week before my own marathon in San Antonio, I decided against my better judgement to not be anti-social and shamelessly cash in on this extreme savings by signing up early with Kevin Schwab...and for the marathon distance...dun dun dun. My original plan was to run with the group and then DNF at 15km.

Since all 30+ of us were heading down, it was a high probability of bumping into friends. Dimitri found me on some random streets near the Westin hotel, while I was arm wrestling with the parking meter. I heard rumours that a few runners had already wisely downgraded their distance at no extra cost. And then when I found out one of them was David Tapia, my gut knew 100% I had to run the race with him!! Sorry Dave. David was easing back into the distance, and I needed to not over do it for the following weekend.

2019 version of the course introduced a new route with a familiar start location at 5th and Harrison near the Seattle Centre. It was advertised as a friendlier course with 25% less elevation gain on the half from 1075ft to 807ft.

The route is mainly a counter clockwise loop, starting SE along 5th (mile 1-2), sneaking N onto the I-5 express lanes and Ship Canal Bridge (mile 3-5), hugging the water on Burke Gilman Trail (mile 5-8), climbing the gradual approach to Aurora Bridge, and finally completing the final kicker climb at Aloha Street and stadium finish. The website also has a interactive map: http://www.seattlemarathon.org/amica-seattle-marathon#marathon-course-info-maps      

David and I eased out of the start behind the 1:30 half pace bunny. Going into the tunnel, we pass the 1:30 pace bunny and gradually picked up Kang and Alexis before the Ship Canal Bridge. The sharp downhill to the water on Burke Gilman trail, David and I started picking up the pace since it was more flat. As we pass each of the photographing locations running together, it certainly means we get a 50% discount on our photos.
The final bridge climb at Aurora, David gradually jumped 5m ahead of me. Once crossing the bridge, I was able to push a little harder to keep up with David. The final kicker climb at Aloha St, I struggled slightly again and then managed to pull back on the downhill. David and I crossed the finishing mat together.  

This was one of the few times I was able to run with a friend basically the entire race. It was a fun race with perfect conditions. David and I finished in 1:25:11 in pretty even splits avg about 4:00/km for first half and 4:01/km for second half.