New Rock-n-Roll Marathon in Seattle (Read 828 times)

A new Rock-n-Roll Marathon event was introduced today... Seattle, 6/27/09. Interestingly, this is the same weekend as another local big-deal marathon, the Seafair Marathon. It would appear, though I am not 100% sure, that the new rnr race will consume the older Seafair race. This is interesting because the Seafair race has had a short but bumpy history over the last few years... culminating in a pre-race shuttle fiasco this year where 400 runners got shafted and weren't allowed to run the full. Instead, they got dumped at the halfway point and were given the opportunity to run a "special" half marathon. ANYWAY, a new RNR race! As this is four weeks after the San Diego Rock-n-Roll Marathon, one wonders what the extra medal will be called for those doing both races. And... finally... there's a music marathon besides the Country Music Marathon actually associated with a city that has a place in rock music history. San Diego? San Jose? San Antonio? Great music in all, but mostly they are spanish-heritage cities named for saints. Virginia Beach? Nah. http://rnrseattle.com (FWIW, I've never been terribly fond of how Elite Racing handles these rnr things. I liked CMM better than San Diego, which I did not like at all. I'm giving San Antonio a chance this year, but they are already doing dorky things with that race... such as a pre-race shuttle to the start, but only those that buy the extra spendy premium package get to ride it. )

Elite Race: $100 for the opportunity to run through the less than spectacular parts of town with a huge huge huge crowd and get a cheap white cotton tee shirt, poor postrace food and whatever on-course fluids and calories gives them the best deal regardless of whether runners like them. Yeah.

And despite all that, it could still be better even than the Seafair marathon which... for 90 bucks had a medium crowd, generally terrible tech t-shirt, poor postrace food, and whatever on-course fluids and calories gave them the best deal... Example: they used Amino Vital in 2006, which many people didn't like much. This is also what they advertised all year leading up to the 2007 race. Until you got to the expo the day before the race. Surprise! They changed the drink to Gleukos. (which I liked a bit better than AV, but it still sucked how they misled people for a year). Seafair also changed the course almost every year of its existence... but stuck with a groovy uphill finish all years. For the first couple years, Seafair was just a half. It was advertised as "flat and fast". Not even. Every Seafair course has been a hilly mofo. For the next few years, it was advertised nationally as "a cool summer marathon". BS. Go run SFO if you want a cool summer marathon. Temperatures at the finish in 2006 and 2007 were in the 80s. In 2008, it was closer to 90. Hell, the Kona Marathon this year (same day) was cooler than Seafair.

What makes a terrible tech shirt?

Various reasons, of which seafair has hit them all. Although my shirt from 07 was ok. Anyway... 1. Gigantic sizing. My mediums from all years before 07 are really XL. 2. Dumb design. These are uggggly shirts some years. Normally, this gets a free pass ("can't please everyone"), but coupled with the rest of this, it doesn't. 3. ...the most important reason by far... cheap ass shirts. Just like with cotton Ts, there are nice technical shirts, and then there are the el cheapos that are poorly made, uncomfortable, and nothing you'd ever run in OR wear in public. Plus they might be "technical", but the fiber is not exactly breathable stuff. Again, my 07 shirt was fine. All the ones before are yuck. I'd prefer a cotton t-shirt over a bad technical shirt any day.

Aren't these "music" marathons all for-profit races? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I kind of like thinking that my big bucks are going to good causes (to include the running club that sponsored it). The only "music" race I've run was CMM and I must say that it was really well-organized but certainly had a "corporate" feel to it. Still, I'm considering San Antonio despite the usual caution about an inaugural race.

Yes, Elite is a for-profit company. Which means I surely wish they'd do a better job. Last year, Seattle's other marathon (the one named "The Seattle Marathon") got into hot water with the local newspaper and then the community by making it seem like more of the marathon's cash went to charity than really did/does. Turns out, the race org pays a few full-time employees a healthy wage and not much money at all went to the named charity. Here's the thing though. That's true about A LOT of races. It was a fine thing to bring up, and the race did do a poor job of communicating the status of fundraising... but the reporter went really far with his accusations w/o doing any homework regarding other city-named races. And then after he got that going, he started making personal attacks on the RD in the paper. "Past employees indicate that she's mean to work for..." It was really weird.

Well, I signed up for Seattle-used to live there and any excuse to go for a vacation. I have run many of the other RNR(VB,Philly,CM) and have had no problems. Lot's of people, but I always go for a vacation and just run for fun. I agree the shirts could be better, but I think the post race party has been ok. I DO wish there could be some variety of the food-maybe some local fare would be good. I know bananas, bagels are easy, but not what I am looking for at the end. I am also doing San Antonio and love to visit, so I expect a good time. My only worry is they are offering a special ticket for reserved parking at the finish and some other special things-what will the peons have to deal with Oh well, we will see. Kathy