Sat 10/05 Portland marathon recap

Sat 10/05 Portland marathon recap
With no small amount of trepidation, I set out to run another road marathon the other day.

Hi, I'm running right now.

Given that road races are so very terrible on my feet and lower legs, I was apprehensive about how the road miles would feel. It turns out that not much has changed since I ran Newport in 2006. Road miles are fairly boring, monotonous, and challenging (if you want them to be, that is). The one thing I can say for road races is that they attract a lot of people. In certain circumstances this can be a good thing, in other cases not so much. I can’t recall the number of walls of soccer moms, almost completely blocking the road from one side to the other, almost sometimes completely walking too I might add, during the course of this race. A significant portion of this was wholly my fault. I should have gotten to the race much earlier to line up in an appropriate spot. Instead I lined up in about 6000th place and proceeded to pass literally about 5000 or about people, finishing 896 out of 7862. A back of the envelope calculation shows a passing rate of about 1 person every 3 seconds. Lame. Totally lame. I wasted too much energy getting around people. Next time I’ll wake up ½ hour earlier, start up where I should, or better yet, avoid the LA freeway traffic jam like numbers in this marathon. After running this race, I can really appreciate a race like Newport’s so much better. Having said all that, I definitely enjoyed finishing this race in a time that was much quicker than expected.















someone is clearly glad to be done




By the numbers
6 – approximate number of Voodoo donuts eaten post-race.
5,265 – number of people that I passed in the race
34 – number of people that passed me in the race
34 – number of Voodoo dolls that I made when I got back home.
3 – number of terrible tasting goos that I ate during the race. These things tasted like honey with crushed up Flinstones vitamins in them. Blecchhhh!!!!
8:13 – average pace per mile, 1 minute per mile slower than a Boston qualifying time.
1 – number of useless and self-congratulatory medals I received at the finishing line.