Jack & Jill's Downhill Marathon

I was really excited about this race and hoped to qualify for Boston given the promise of the negative split due to the gentle downhill. Unfortunately, that downhill wasn't enough to get me to the qualifying time.

Overall, it's a well organized race. Staff and volunteers are super friendly. Morning of was easy - plenty of parking and porta potties. It's an expensive registration fee but when I experienced the logistics of what's required at the end, I understood why. It's a challenge to get the runners back to the starting point. More on that later.

Packet pickup - it's a $25 to do packet pickup morning of. I can't remember the fee for having the bib mailed. I opted to go pick it up but it's in Snoqualmie which is 45 minutes from downtown Seattle. This was somewhat of a pain.

Course is pretty, running through the trees mostly. There are some expansive views of the lake which are gorgeous. The trail is gravel and it really took a toll on my feet and legs. By the time I got out of the tunnel, my legs were cooked and I didn't really benefit from the downhill (I didn't negative split).

The tunnel is fun although I was on my own (the field really spreads out after the turnaround at mile 6.5) and it was super dark. I had a headlamp but took it off my head and held it to the ground to see better. It was a fun experience but somewhat disorienting. I had to stay focused mentally on just putting one foot in front of the other - at times it could have been dizzying. It's a great temperature inside and the ~2.5 miles go by quickly.

Aid stations were just as described - about every 2/2.5 miles. Water and gatorade. I didn't see any nutrition but perhaps it was there (I brought my own so didn't look).

The trail is not closed and there were a few bikers coming at us on the trail but they were generally quite friendly and gave us lots of space.

The finish was fun. It's a narrow trail so you run through the chute with a decent number of spectators cheering for you.

The snacks at the end were lacking - water and coke, bananas and potato chips. After 26.2 miles, I was hungrier than that!

The walk to the bus pick up is about a mile. Although it's mostly downhill, it takes a while given how tired/sore the legs are. Probably took us about 30 minutes. The wait for the bus was short - they had quite a few in rotation. The ride back to the parking lot took about 25 minutes. It was a cold ride so I'm glad I had my sweater in my bag (used bag drop which was well organized). I didn't get back to my car until 2 hours after I finished (I waited for my spouse to finish as well so we could go back together. That plus walk, plus bus time took about 2 hours).

Overall, I'm glad I did the race but don't have a strong desire to do it again, mostly because of the gravel trail and the logistics at the end.