The 2011 Portland Marathon

Two minutes, and twenty four seconds. That’s how much time I missed my marathon goal time of sub-four hours by. In all fairness I was trying to cut 44 minutes off my previous marathon PR, but it should have been completely doable. I am pretty psyched that I ran so much faster of a marathon than my last marathon, but the fact that I failed to beat four hours, means I’m going to have to run another marathon. Darn this running addiction.

Overall, the Portland Marathon this year was a much more enjoyable experience than it was last year. The weather was mostly dry with mild temperatures, perfect for running. My strategy for running the marathon was just to come out as fast as I could maintain and then constantly adjust my speed based on how I was feeling, and constantly asking myself if I could run a bit faster. Other than noting the pacers, I really didn't use them at all, I just tried to keep as fast of a pace as I could maintain. My time at the half way point was 1:56:46, which would make it my 3rd fastest half marathon time! I did walk a bit on the climb up to the St John’s bridge. After the St John’s bridge I was dragging a bit, especially though miles 20 and 21 but then I really picked up the pace during the long hill leading down to the Broadway Bridge driven in part by the thought that around mile 23 there would be the beer aid station! After the Broadway Bridge my quads were really hurting, they almost felt like they were cramping. Between the leg pain and exhaustion of having just run 24 miles faster than I had ever run that distance before, I just couldn’t bring myself to push any harder and so I finished pretty slow.

So now nearly a week after the marathon, I’m feeling good enough to take a short run. I do need to get back into training since I have the Salty’s Half Marathon in a few weeks, followed by the Seattle Half Marathon a month after that. Right now I’m thinking about waiting until the packet pickup on the day before the marathon, and if the forecast is for dry weather on the day of the marathon I might just upgrade to the full Seattle Marathon. Other than that I have no other races planned for 2011, with the exception of participating as much as possible as my 8 year old daughter works on completing the Seattle Kids Marathon. However, for 2012 I would really like to run the Chicago Marathon!

Enjoying the Rain

Today I took the bus in; no running, no biking, just fully tapering before Sunday's marathon. As I was walked to the bus in the typical Seattle Autumn drizzle, I was reminded of an incident many years ago, in a different life, when I was a traveling paper salesman. I was in Denver for a trade show, the show was over, and all the sales people were out to dinner together before heading back to their respective towns in the morning. One particular sales guy was trying to mock my hometown of Seattle by describing it as the town that was all about intermittent windshield wipers. His comment was largely ignored, but his point was taken. Seattle is a generally wet city. Not real heavy rain, but sort of an on and off drizzle. In his book Still Life with Woodpecker, Tom Robbins talks of using a canopy of blackberry bushes covering the city to protect us from the rain, but what can you expect, Tom Robbins is a transplant from back East. I don't think the wet bothers true natives, or at least those who were born and raised in Seattle. But it clearly bothers the transplants, which there are so many of. I enjoy the rain, in fact I actually enjoy being out in the rain. What gets me down is the incessant complaining by the transplant. For at least 9 months of the year you hear and read endlessly about how dreary the weather is. It's all the complaining about the weather does get me down; and ultimately it's hard not to get caught up in it and get down on the weather that I would otherwise enjoy. This year I've actively been trying to avoid any talk about weather, or reading anything negative about the weather. Generally my plan to stay positive about the weather seems to be working, although it is early, and summer just ended, but I seem to be happy spending time in the cool gray misty rain. And it's a good thing I enjoy this wet weather because on Sunday I'm likely to spend my second Portland marathon in the rain, feet sloshing, clothes soaked all the way though, running for hours in this, with a big smile on my face.

Portand Marathon

The Portland Marathon was hard, and it hurt a lot. I awoke at 4:45 AM on the day of the marathon and noted the pouring rain outside. It would continue to rain almost non-stop until after I had finished the race. By 6:45 AM I was wrapped in a plastic garbage bag and huddling under some available cover at the Convention Center with at least 150 other runners in my coral waiting for the 7:00 AM start time. I was in the light blue "D" group, so it was closer to 7:15 AM when we actually started moving.

The start of the race was great! The drum core, the shouts of the spectators! However a mere hour into the race I knew I was going to be in for some hurt. My left knee and hip were starting to bother me, and all I could think was that I pushed it too hard when I had done the Bellingham Bay 1/2 marathon 2 weeks prior to this. So I decided to take it slow and try and finish in under 4:30 rather than delude myself with any idea of a faster finish time. Originally I thought if everything was perfect I could conceivably finish in under 4:00, but just an hour into the run I knew that wasn't going to happen.

Around mile 17 or 18 both hips were really starting to hurt, which is something I had never experienced before when running. By mile 20 I was just trying to keep up with the 4:30 pacer, but by mile 22 the pacer was out of site and I was constantly stopping to stretch and walk. Walking really didn't ease the pain, and starting running again really hurt. I felt as though I had tons of energy, it's just that I hurt. Bad.

I vowed to run my last 3 miles in without taking any walking breaks, if for no reason other than it hurt so bad to start running after I had stopped to walk a bit. I even picked up the pace a bit around mile 25, however seeing mile 26 totally energized me and I gave it everything I had and ran as fast as I could, trying to not let anyone pass me that last 365 feet (one guy definitely did, but he finished only a second ahead of me). In the end I finished at 4:44:00. Despite the pain and cold, all I could think of is that I can't wait until my next marathon so that I can improve upon that time!