Portland Marathon - RunMarathon

The plan was to lightly jog the first mile, then walk up the second mile's steep hill. (As a Florida flatlander, I have no hill skills!). But the hill didn't come until mile 3. I was then supposed to institute the 5:1 or 4:1 intervals. I definitely walked some intervals, but I wasn't really timing by the clock . . . totally overcome by the scenery, the beautiful colors on the trees, the mountains, the bands and the excitement of my first marathon!

The race started with a marching band's drum core. That rocked!! We felt like we were going out to battle. We also enjoyed the lovely melody of a harpist sitting at a ghetto gas station. I tried taking a picture here, but it came out too blurry. There were folks with bells that had an awesome melody and lots of band/singers. There was way more entertainment than was really needed! Somewhere around mile 6, we passed the homeless part of town, and you could see so many people sleeping in their bags. Oregonian homeless are made of stronger stuff than Tampa homeless. I felt so sorry for them and wondered what their story was for a few of them.

The scenery was awesome and the folks around me must have gotten really sick of hearing "OMG, what a pretty TREE! Look at the red leaves, look at the yellow leaves!" It was quite heavenly. Hubbie told me he was so jealous that I'm going to get to feel so great doing a mary on my birthday. He wants to do one on his birthday now!

At the 10k mark, I was 10 min over my best 10k, so I thought this was the perfect pace. Around the halfway point, my time was 3:44. Not my best 'training' time, but about 16 min faster than the Gasparilla Half (which I walked.) I was feeling GREAT!

I held a pretty decent pace until about mile 17, and then it was all uphill from there! No, actually, Mile 17 was all uphill, up over the St. John's Bridge and we walked that whole distance. It's here where my overall pace of 17:something dropped into the 18s. Then we were directed to the sidewalk and I just don't run on cement. So, I'd run along the sidewalk in spots, then run across the streets, but it was about 60% walking at this point and the pace was now in the high 18s.

At mile 20, after seeing a million signs (kind of like the South of the Border signs along I-95) for Red Bull, we encountered those losers packing up and pretending like they were all out. I was FURIOUS and totally raging about this. I had just had enough and felt totally ripped off. I spent over 2 thousand dollars to come to this race, and hearing 'I'm sorry, we are all out" for the thousandth time just sent me over the edge. However, the most wonderful thing happened. One of the TNT folks heard me bitch that I came from FL to run and offered me HER Red Bull and then they gave us these magical boiled red potatoes and some candy. After the sugar fix, I had enough energy to run for another 4 miles. They were awesome, and I totally loved those girls. They inspired me to run faster a little later too . . . when they started singing Sound of Music tunes.



We are still emjoying the scenery, the University of Portland looks amazing. Then we caught a glimpse of how far we are from downtown! Holy shit!

By this time, I've taken about 20 pictures or so. I'm so glad I brought my camera!!

Somewhere around mile 24 (garmin mile 24), I stopped being able to get a "full" breath. My left foot had been hurting for a long time and I can only describe it as if the bones in my foot were rubbing together . . . like they lost their lube or something. I guess this was my wall (is there a wall when you are so slow??) From there, it was all I could do to keep moving and many times I sat down for 30-60 seconds, just to get my weight off my feet.

It's been 20 years since I've been on my feet for 9 hours. TWENTY YEARS! This hurt.

Near the bitter end, some older guy told me I had 'rugby' legs, cuz I had a tendon that was really defined with every step. He told me that meant that I had great conditioning. I think he was trying to find something positive to say while he passed me, but then I obsessed over what this tendon looked like.

The last few miles were such a struggle. The last .2 was all uphill, but somehow when I saw the end, I was able to muster enough to run past everyone else and finish running. I hope it turns out to be an awesome photo of hubbie and I holding hands across the finish.

Bring more nutrition.

Find a better training plan. Maybe one that back off the mileage every few weeks, and do a run to at least 22 miles.

Hobble back to the hotel, order room service.


I gotta lose some weight.


I chose this race cuz it was advertised to be so friendly to all with an 8 hour pace. The freakin' LIARS. For the first 7 hours, all I was offered were 3 gummy bears. I had tucked 4 gels in my bra, but for that kind of time on the course, I really needed about 10 gels or so. I knew I was in trouble when I noticed the heavy folks had backpacks. The race was very well organized, but I could have done with 10 less bands and more nutrition. Seriously, 'support' is really what I've paid for, it should be criminal to send people out on those distances and not deliver what you've promised to.