San Juan Island Half

It’s been almost two weeks, so this is overdue.. On June 14-15 Katy and I headed up to San Juan Island to run the 11th annual San Juan Island Marathon (Katy) and Half Marathon (Me).

It was pretty amazing. Both of us PR’d on one of the hilliest and challenging courses in the area!

Quick recap:

Getting to the Island was… interesting. After getting there too early for a ferry that was listed online but didn’t actually exist, we arrived almost an hour before the actual scheduled departure, only to find out that the ferry was full and we were on Standby. Luckily, we were 3rd in line for Standby and were one of about 10 extra cars that made it. Phew!

Views from the ferry to San Juan Island

We arrived on San Juan Island and rushed up to San Juan Vineyards, where we picked up our race packets and drank some delicious wine during the winery’s annual Barrel Tasting. We tried some excellent Cabernet Sauvignon straight from the barrel, ate some delicious cheese, and listened to a guy play some good jazz electric guitar… fantastic!

Afterwards, we drove around the course, stopping for a break to check out Lime Kiln State Park. Lime Kiln is on the west part of San Juan Island and is known for being an excellent spot to see Orca Wales right from the island. There wasn’t a pod going by while we were there, unfortunately, but it was beautiful nonetheless, with a great little walk through a Madrone forest, and a seal lazily floating right offshore. On our way out, we stopped just south of the park and saw a pod of dolphins or porpoises out in the water—it was awesome!

views from Lime Kiln

The race was the next morning and was a total blast. It was great weather: the temperature was in the 60s in the morning and high 70s by the afternoon.

We started out running the first part of the course together before Katy broke off to run the full while I turned to finish the course for the half. Those first 7 miles I was running in pace with Katy at about 8:20/mi. Once we broke off our own ways however, I felt great and sped up, leaving with me with a huge negative split and a pretty decent time. I ran the last 6 miles at about 7:20 pace, passing quite a few people.

Final result:
Overall: 6/111
Age group: 1/1
Overall time: 1:42:57.9
Pace: 7:52/mi

Given how hilly (and apparently notoriously tough) the course is, I’m feeling pretty great about this result. Plus, I barely ran 25 miles in the month prior to train for this, so it makes me think that if I give it some daily effort I can definitely keep a 7:20 or less pace for an entire half marathon, and possibly something reasonably competitive for a full marathon.

Overall it was a great time. It helped that the whole race was a tiny grassroots production. Packet pickup was at a winery, and there were about 200 people running all events. Top finishers were given cakes!
It made for a really warm and inclusive event, plus it made you enjoy running, and looking around the gorgeous island.

-Ely

PS: Katy absolutely crushed it: 2nd Female overall, 9th overall, 8:18 pace for a PR on her 4th Marathon!