The Marathon - Part 2

Part 2

Marathon Day quickly approached. In hindsight the toughest part for me (besides miles 23-25) was the taper. 3 weeks of s-l-o-w-i-n-g down. It was really tough mentally and I was antsy and nervous. Plus in the final week or so I was eating like a Sumo wrestler so I was nervous that I was gaining too much weight.

Alas race day approached. My family was here – bless you Toni, Phil and Lorraine – we had made all our plans….kind of. I read and re-read all the material I could on race day prep. We knew what we were going to wear, we knew what we were going to eat (Clif Shot Blocks) and we knew this was not the time to try anything new.

I went over my check list:

Taper for 3 weeks – check; eat like a ton of food – check; get nervous – get really, really nervous – check; wash and iron race out fit – check; crack jokes about possibly not finishing just to prep everyone for possible failure – check; pick up packet with chip and bib – check; lose 1 safety pin so bib will be improperly pinned – check; go to bed early – check; wake up every 15 minutes and obsess about missing 4th pin – check.

I did manage to get some sleep but up and at ‘em at 4:30 am. Take a shower, have a sip of tea, eat a Clif Shot Block. My last good luck hugs from Mom and Lorraine and off I go to convene at Janice’s.

Mary had graciously offered to take us down and she planned to start and finish with us. It was so important and wonderful to have her there. I can’t say enough about her support and graciousness down the stretch in the face of her own injury. Mary’s greatest gift to Janice and I were autographed greetings from Brandi Chastain. Mine says “Dreams do come true! Good Luck in the Marathon!” Now how could we not finish when we had Brandi on our side?

Back to race day – we pinned on our bibs – tied on our chips - Janice packed up 6 or so Clif Shot Blocks in a baggie and managed to get them in her shorts pocket. And down to the race start we went. We were smart to not get there too early – we slipped in with about 10 minutes to start and waited for the start gun.

To be honest, the beginning of the race is a blur. I remember bits and pieces of the course. The start is so crowded – it really is about not wearing yourself out by dodging and weaving around the masses. Janice feared I would start too fast but we seemed ok going through mile 5 when we left our fans for a spell.

The long out and back on Front Avenue (miles 6 – 11) went quickly and was made entertaining when we met and chatted with a runner from Illinois who was in town visiting his son. Go Boilermakers! Peter, Mary and the boys gave us a fuel stop at mile 10 - more Clif Shot Blocks – yum!

Miles 11- 13 through NW Portland were uneventful and then onto Highway 30. We had heard nightmares about this long straight stretch – the highway noise, the unendingness of it all, the boredom, where is the St. John’s bridge? But Janice and I had a plan – we were to each pick someone to talk about for each mile during the tough times. And all I can say is we both have very interesting and wonderful grandparents because between all of them – the next thing I knew we were on the St. John’s Bridge!

Halfway across we stopped to stretch and what a view… absolutely great. There are a lot of things I am grateful to Janice for - many, many things, and one of them was she insisted we take the time to stretch along the course and I shutter to think of miles 23- 26 if we had not done that.

Just off the bridge was mile 18 and although I still felt good I knew it was a long 8 miles to the end. This stretch along Willamette Blvd. was where a lot of our fans were going to be so my recollection of this time is scanning the crowd for our wonderful supporters, among them Sr. Lynda; Brian & Terri; Maureen and Caroline; Colleen, John, Kate and Molly; Phil, Lorraine and Toni bearing signs – and of course Peter, Mary, Christian and Michael. All of Janice’s crew ran with us at some point along the bluff and that was a wonderful gift. Michael’s humor kept us light, Christian told Janice a family story she had never heard before, Peter kept us focused and offered wonderful words of encouragement.

Peter was there when I hit the wall. It was around mile 22 ½ and as we started down the long hill on Greeley. You would think going downhill would be helpful but I was so tired I actually asked Janice if we could stop and stretch half way down. But we made it down to the next water stop where Peter left off and Mary joined in for the final 2 miles. I was really low at this point – I just wanted it to end but I didn’t want to stop – but I really didn’t want to go either.

Right then – at the base of the Steel Bridge – we saw Colleen, John, Molly and Kate. Their timing could not have been more perfect. It was so great to see them – especially Kate – it gave me renewed energy. At this point I could convince myself to just get over the bridge. And before you know it we were over the bridge and we had just a mile to go. I should add that Janice was chipper and seemed completely fresh this whole time. Of course I wanted to throttle her!

Once we were on Front I knew we would finish and although I was very tired I wanted to enjoy this last mile and I did. You know I felt like my legs were barely moving (and our time splits confirm that they were in fact – barely moving!) – but that mile went by pretty darn fast and then we hit the turn – Janice called out – “hey there is your family” – sure enough Mom, Phil and Lorraine (again with signs) were yelling and screaming.

And then the fat lady sang, we turned the corner, we raised our arms and we crossed the finish line of our first marathon!

The Saturday Run

Went for a 9 miler this morning with Janice. It was a drop dead gorgeous day and we ran the loop in downtown Portland (featured in Runners World as the Rave Run of the month with none other than Lance Armstrong as our guest runner). This loop takes you south of the city on a bike path that runs through a wetlands area so depending on the time of year you can see some really great stuff. An osprey couple return every year to nest right next to the path and it is wonderful to hear the baby Osprey cry for food in the spring. Really a unique and cool sound.

One day I was biking home from work on this same path and saw a bunch of folks with spotting scopes. Thanks to my mom I know this means one thing – rare bird sighting! So I stopped and asked what everyone was looking at. It was a shore bird that had gotten of course and had landed itself to eat and rest at Oaks Bottom. The birders were kind enough to let me have a look through the scope and he was a beauty of a bird.

Back to this morning’s run – there is still some color here and the trees along the shores of the Willamette were especially bright. I’m thinking they are alders but I would need a naturalists help with that identification. We had both had a busy week and had not run for most of the week so we went slow and it ended up being an enjoyable run.

The other lovely sighting this morning was the occasional crew team – cutting the glass-like waters of the Willamette with their sculls. No sound other than the creak of the oars, the slap of the water and the occasional shout from the captain of the boat. Lovely.

We continue to monitor the progress of the tram which for non-Portlanders is this very controversial idea to tram workers, doctors and patients (?) from the waterfront area (itself being developed) up to our research hospital at the crest of the west hills here.

The tram has been controversial, expensive and frankly an eye sore and most doubt it will be a success. Stay tuned to see how this turns out. Most OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University) employees I talk to won’t ride it either out of inconvenience or simple fear of dangling hundreds of feet in the air (put me in that group). I’ll try and get a picture so you can get the idea.

So south on the east side and back north on the west side – we ran through another little development on the waterfront – a pleasant area where on a nice morning lots of people are wandering around sipping coffee, going for a row or just a nice stroll on a nice morning.

One woman yelled out at us “You have more motivation than I do!” at which I yelled back “Oh we are stopping for a latte any moment now!” Which was mostly true since we were about a mile from the finish.

A great morning, a great friend and the two of us on a great run.