Seafair Runners Will Be Voting for the Next Transit Prop

Photo courtesy of Seattlest Flickr pool contributor Grundlepuck.

Transit in Seattle has its challenges. (Yes, operator of the 554 who thought it would be a good idea on Friday to pull your half-full rig next to another bus at the Eastgate Park-and-Ride and then complain back and forth with the other driver for five minutes about your shifts getting changed due to school being out while Seattlest sweltered a few rows back in the ad-wrapped, ventilation-free, four-wheeled saucepan, yes, we are most certainly talking to YOU. You ran two stops signs later, but we digress.)

So, when 400 Seafair Marathon runners missed the shuttle bus Sunday morning from Bellevue to the starting line at Montlake, the news hardly shocked us.

Marathon runners spend months fastidiously following intricate training programs. They strap on heart rate monitors. They calculate their daily calorie intake. They even track the cumulative miles on each pair of running shoes. When given the open-ended task of "arrive at parking lot and take bus," heads begin popping off.

Seattlest understands their pain. It takes an hour to get across the lake by bus. Period. It just does. We have no idea where the time goes, and mostly we just look at the pretty sailboats to pass the time. So, if you show up in Bellevue and expect a bus to get you to Seattle in an hour, you would be wrong. Even at 6 a.m. on a Sunday.

For those who managed the pre-race logistics, the course was deemed scenic, hot and challenging. "I'm glad I started running hills in practice", female winner Wendy Terris told the Seattle Times. "They were brutal." The men's race was won by Kenyan Edward Kiptum in just over 2 hours 20 minutes. Terris, a Portland area native, clocked a winning time of 2:50:55.