Thursday, May 20, 2010

Seattle & Vancouver Marathon Trip

On Wednesday, April 28th, I flew to Seattle to meet my mom who flew in from Minneapolis to do sightseeing throughout the city for a couple days and hit up the Mariner's baseball game on Friday with one of my Augsburg classmates Becky Welle and her fiancé and friends. Here's a common sight flying to/from Fairbanks. Lots of mountains, snow, and a few ocean shorelines.
Due to being in Seattle for five days just a couple weeks earlier for my AmeriCorps Pre-Service Orientation downtown, I was able to guide us pretty easily to many awesome sites within the city. (Captions below pictures)
[Seattle Public Library - amazing architecture]
[Seattle Art Museum - display featuring white, light-up Ford Tauruses]
[Pike Place Market - fish! crabs! clams! lobster! flowers! vegetables! pasta! handmade gifts! lots of people!]
[Ferry to Bainbridge Island - I highly recommend taking the 28-minute ride at sunset.]
[Columbia Center Observation Deck - Stunning views from 76 stories (937 feet) overlooking the Seattle skyline. You can see the Space Needle in the distance.]
[Seattle Mariners Game - Seattle was tied with Texas until a 12th-inning wild pitch helped the Rangers win 0-2.]

The following day we took Amtrack Cascades to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada so I could run the 2010 BMO Vancouver Marathon on Sunday, May 2nd. Despite the gloomy day, the scenery was great as we mostly rolled along the shores of the Puget Sound and farming fields of NW Washington state.
[Amtrack Cascades - The train ride is about four hours and rolls through many small towns along the Puget Sound.]

After arriving in Vancouver, we quickly checked into the hotel and took off to meet up with Becky and her friends at Milestones Restaurant in the city's arts district for some great carbo-loading for the following day's race. Speaking of, I felt as though I was extremely under-trained due to a very inconsistent running schedule throughout the winter/early spring as well as getting my move to Alaska all figured out. Nevertheless, I was able to secure a 2:50:27 finish for the 26.2 mile/42.2 km morning sprinkle adventure throughout downtown Vancouver and Stanley Park - good enough for 26th place overall, 5th in my age group and only 40 seconds from my personal best (Twin Cities Marathon 2006) - out of just over 3200 marathoners. I credit the success to maintaining a controlled pace and not running too fast in the first half of the race. I went through the first half in 1:26:00 and second half in 1:24:27 while averaging 6:30 per mile. Here are a few pics from the race, some from MarathonFoto.com.
[Miles 11 - 16 go through Stanley Park. It's definitely the most scenic part of the race course.]
[Miles 17 and 24 find you running up over and down the Burrard Street Bridge, another favorite part of mine.]
[Becky just finished her 8th? marathon with a solid time of 3:36:02, well within her goal of running sub-3:40:00.]
[I remember finishing and hearing my mom stumbling over her words saying, "DANIEL! DANIEL! Awesome!" Haha]
After cleaning up back at the hotel, we took off to meet up with Becky and her friends at The Fish House for some awesome seafood, checked out some hilarious statues, hit up the Mill Marine Bistro & Bar, and had a couple night caps back at their hotel before taxiing it back to my hotel. The following day, Ma and I decided to water-taxi it over to North Vancouver to check out Grouse Mountain and the Capilano River Suspension Bridge. Here's the Vancouver skyline as well as some Vancouver mountains and a favorite picture of the suspension bridge.


Then the time came to hop back on the train and head to Seattle, find a hotel room for the night, and fly back to our respective homes. Me, directly back to Fairbanks and mom back to La Crescent, MN by way of Denver and Minneapolis. It was great to basically celebrate an early Mother's Day - this was more like a Mother's Week - and see Becky again. I had a blast in Seattle and can easily compare it to Minneapolis. Vancouver was a decent city with great scenery. And the marathon finish was nothing like I would've ever imagined. Guess that goes to show I'm a low-mileage marathoner. Thanks to Dennis and the Augsburg CC and Track teams for keeping me in some short of shape over the past nine years or so; and Larry and Abe at LCHS for providing the foundation. Without the guidance, I wouldn't be looking to *race* one or two marathons per year for as long as my legs hold up. In addition, I have to thank my mom for all her support over the years in everything I've done. As everyone has in their lives, there have been ups and downs. My mom and family have been stellar in being by my side no matter what new adventures I may embark on.

Seattle and Vancouver, you've been visited.
On to the next adventure.

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