The Sunday following Thanksgiving will present an exciting (and possibly chilly) distance running event for the Pacific Northwest – the HarrisDirect Seattle Marathon. Dick and Sandy Michener, fellow runners from North Carolina whom I met through an online running community, contacted me regarding this race and were kind enough to invite me to join them in the event. We decided to go for the half-marathon; for my part, I recognized that the stresses of the intern year of medicine residency would absorb much of my time and energy this year. At this point, I’m running four miles two or (if I’m really lucky) three times per week. I’m about to bump up the distance to create one longer a week supplemented with two shorter runs. This will be a half-marathon about fitness, a celebration that I will be nearly halfway through my intern year, a conquering of Seattle hills…?
A brief note on Seattle hills: they are steep. Did you know that the sidewalks downtown close to the water were raised about 12 feet, and then the second floors of some of the buildings in Pioneer Square became the ground levels? I learned this on the Seattle Underground Tour in June – before the sidewalks were raised, the incline from the water up the hill was ~48 degrees. Not sure what it is now, but I certainly feel each fraction of a degree as my legs pump me up the hill through the International District. My friends in the area tell me Seattle isn’t that hilly – that San Francisco is more remarkable in this category. I tell them we used to run on bridges and overpasses in Charleston in order to get the slightest incline for training.
I’m in Las Vegas on vacation this week – exercising will consist of running on a treadmill as it is a million degrees here and I’m getting sunburned THROUGH MY SHIRT. I’m not used to all of this after my pleasant, comfortable summer in Seattle. Was I a Carolinian at one point? Perhaps I still am at my core, but my skin, nose, and physiologic cooling system seem to have forgotten already.