Decades ago, riding a bus across the floating bridge to work in Bellevue one rainy Sunday morning, I saw a lot of people running across the bridge. The bus driver told me that was the Seattle Marathon. We laughed over why a marathon would be held in Seattle in November, because November is a cold, rainy month.
It’s only become a colder, rainier month since, yet the Seattle Marathon is still held the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and that’s a big reason why the Seattle Marathon is harder than the Vancouver B.C marathon, in May, or the Portland, Oregon marathon or the Victoria B.C. marathon (both in October).
“How long is the marathon?” is the most common question I’ve gotten about them. Marathons are always 26.2 miles. Organizers and participants are exacting about that, so there’s a common standard for all the statistics.
Every marathon I’ve run has been outdoors, as well, and outdoors is where I’ve gone to train for marathons. There are hills out there, and weather, and one has to be ready for those factors in a marathon.
In Seattle, that means training outdoors in November. If you train before or after a day job, that means running in the darkness, sometimes without being able to see well at all. That means running through puddles of uncertain depth, puddles that could have sticks and rocks in them, puddles that will soak your shoes and weigh down your feet for the remainder of the run and keep the shoes wet all day and night so they’ll still be cold and wet when you put them on the next day for the next training run.
Running in November means the possibility of running in sub-freezing temperatures, needing to have some type of long pants to keep the legs warm, long-sleeved shirts and, for most, some type of jacket, and some type of hat. For the runner accustomed to short pants and a short-sleeve shirt, that’s an awful lot of clothing.
A few years ago, my last 28-mile training run took place in snowfall– eight laps around the outer path at Green Lake as the snow added up to a few inches and kids sledded down the little hills.
Up at 4 am, out the door by 4:30, two laps around Green Lake in a cold, windy rain, 15 minutes at home to shower and dress before the 15-minute walk to the bus stop to get downtown to start work at 7:30, in bed at 9 to try for seven hours of sleep before the next morning’s two laps in more wind, rain, and cold.
Then the last training run on Thanksgiving, with the day off from work, and the marathon on the first Sunday of Advent, remembering those hard training runs, with no training at all in December except for fun– that’s the Seattle Marathon!