Portland Marathon

After the Portland Marathon with my sister and my dad

People run marathons for a number of reasons.They run to finish, they run in the memory of a loved one, they run for charity - all admirable reasons. 26.2 miles is a really long way to run. I run as fast as I absolutely can for the distance with my main goals being: 1. get a faster time than the last time and 2: don't throw up.

A lot can go wrong in a marathon. Actually a lot can go wrong before a marathon. Getting there in the first place is often the hardest part. Ask anyone who's tried. It takes months to get ready, your body gets put under a lot of stress, you get sick easily, you annoy your friends and family with your fanatical and obsessive training. And then there's the big question about what pace to run. I have seriously spent waaaay too much time trying to figure this one out. I ran numerous "training races" in order to use those times to extrapolate an appropriate marathon pace. The problem is that a marathon is much longer and your body behaves quite differently at such a distance. Did I mention that 26.2 miles is a really long way to run?


Then there's the actual race. So much can go wrong here even if you make it through the training. You can eat the wrong thing the day before or morning of and then spend every mile searching for a port-o-potty. Hanging out in a port-o-potty is definitely not the best way to run your fastest time. Or you can have a fabulous first 10 miles, get really excited, only to have to walk the rest of the way because your muscles seized up. Well, this could go on and on.


The good thing is, I had a pretty good race, not a perfect one, but pretty darn good one. My dad, whose main goal was to finish his first marathon, accomplished that with flying colors. Our morning began in the dark and in the rain. Not a gentle sprinkle, but a true Oregon downpour which lasted through my entire race and most of my dad's. We were assigned to different starting waves based on our predicted paces so we weren't able to start together. I was assigned to the "A" wave, the very first wave, that is. This may not seem important to most people, but it meant there were only about 100-200 hundred people in front of me, mostly men, and about 15,000 people behind me (including both the half and whole marathon). It also meant that I needed to start fast in order to avoid getting trampled by any of the near 15,000 behind me. With that in mind, I found the 3:10 pace group (all men aiming for Boston) and used them as a shield against the wind.


Not to bore you with too many details, this was the strategy I kept until around mile 16. I wish I could say I kept it for the entire race, but I had my first encounter with cramping muscles beginning around that time. I have seen and heard stories about cramping during marathons. Sus, my training partner, and one tough cookie, had her first 2 marathons destroyed by muscle cramps. I have watched people drop to the ground grimacing and clutching their legs. During this race I saw the same guy do it over and over until finally he rolled himself to the curb, defeated. Luckily I was able to find some kind of critical balance between my speed and the intensity of the cramps. Every time I slowed down, it eased off, but the 3:10 pace group slowly drifted away. I finally decided finishing a few minutes slower really wasn't that big of a deal and kept looking behind me to make sure the 3:15 group wasn't around (it wasn't). In the end I finished in 3:13 which is definitely faster than my last time and I didn't throw up, so both goals were met! I saw my mom's tan and grinning face just before the finish line which was such a nice boost. My mom, Cathy, Rowan, Jani and her friend Jennifer had all braved the rain (well duh, they're Oregonians) to watch us run. My dad finished in 5:38, just as the sun was coming out.

Here are the stats from the race:

12,000 were entered in the marathon
7804 finished

Me: 3:13 time
255 out of 7804 total finishers
22 out of 4412 women finishers
5 out of 754 women 35-39 years old
7:23 min/mile pace

My dad: 5:38 time
5962 out of 7804 finishers
2988 out of 3392 men
74 out of 113 men 60-64 years
12:54 min/mile pace

Well now I suppose I'll soon start obsessing over how to shave a few more minutes off during the Boston Marathon which I'll run with Sus next April. And I remember thinking before my first marathon that I probably only had one in me. Ha!