Location: Portland, Oregon
Distance: 21k
Chip Time: 2:29:40
Pace: 11:25/mi
Well, it finally happened. On January 1 of this year I decided to write out a list of New Years resolutions, a last ditch sort of thing as I oftentimes find resolutions to be difficult to keep and so what’s the point of writing them. But I did, and the very first resolution I wrote was “Run a half marathon (and/or a 5k every month).” The first half was a pipe dream, really; I wrote it because I knew it was a great challenge, but also a challenge that was a little out of my wheelhouse. But these are resolutions, not the Ten Commandments; you write stuff down, some of it doesn’t stick, and that’s okay.
Then, I started running 5ks and got into parkrun and my running life spiraled out of control. In a good way, I mean. If you count parkrun, by April I had run 14 different events, including four 5ks (or three 5ks and one 3 miler, stupid Couve Clover Run). It was somewhere in April that I got an email from the Portland Marathon stating that their prices were about to go up. I was feeling confident and decided to sign up.
Now, I’ve run the damn thing, finally, four months later. How did it go?
Well … good. And bad. But mostly good!
Pre-Race
The night before I packed my drop bag with all the necessities. Anti-chafe? Check. Towel for my sweaty face afterward? Check. Change of clothes? Check.
Then, it was off to bed at 9pm for a fitful night of sleep. I thought I slept like shit but Garmin says I did fine. Agree to disagree.
In the morning I got up, did the prerequisite toilet time, ate half a PB & honey sandwich, and started the trek to the venue. It’s always weird to walk through the industrial district (inner eastside Portland) in the dark. What was weirder though is that as I was getting closer to the Hawthorne Bridge, I could hear some thumping EDM music coming from a building, and for a moment I wondered if it was some club that was having an all night rave party or something. But I think it was just people setting up to cheer for the race. I think.
Got to the place. A ton of porta potties. A Lollapalooza-level of toilets. Did the Pre-Race Poop, took off my warm clothes, put all my gels in the pockets of my running shorts, gave the poor harried women in the drop bag tent my bag, and then headed to the race starting point. Marathoners were on the south side of Salmon St, half marathoners were on the north side.
Didn’t do any running warmup, just some dynamic stretches and stuff like that. I wanted to save my energy for the run itself.
Atmosphere
The energy of the crowd was pretty great. Weirdly enough, there were fewer registrants for this race than for the Shamrock Run. Only 6,680 finishers and I think a hundred or so DNFs. I’m pretty sure Shamrock had over 10,000 runners. (Which is also low for Shamrock, historically.) I know everyone’s leaving Portland because we’re full of drug users and Crime™, but apparently the people who left were all runners.
The vibe of this run was somewhat formal. It felt like a proper running event, as opposed to the Foot Traffic Flat, which felt like some runners getting together to have a good time. My quarter marathon at the Flat ended in front of somebody’s big farm house. However, the vibe between the west side of Portland and the east side for this run couldn’t be more different. West side we ran through downtown a bit and then down Naito Parkway, a big fancy street. Then it was Macadam, which is also a big street for lots of cars and such. There were homes but they were over there.
Then we crossed the Sellwood Bridge, which was beautiful and I wish I had taken a photo of the view. We were then in east Portland, running through neighborhood, with houses and people! It was very nice. Lastly, we ran through the inner eastside industrial district I mentioned earlier, which was pretty bleh except for the small bit we ran on the eastside Esplanade, by OMSI. I’ve run that route a bunch and it’s nice, though I do kind of wish we had kept going up the Esplanade cause it runs right on the water.
Then we were back downtown with the big tall buildings. Lots of different Portland vibes!
The Race
Not sure how to talk about distance races like these yet. As you can see from the above image, my pace was fairly stable through the first eight miles. Coincidentally, eight miles is the longest distance I had run before the half. Are those two things related? Probably.
What’s more the culprit of the second half of the … half, is fueling. I’ve read and watched a bunch on proper fueling for a long run but one thing nobody tells you about it is how much it sucks. It really sucks to ingest food while you are running, even if it’s energy gels.
Basically my fueling plan was what it says on the Gu energy gel packet: take one five minutes before the start, and then every 45 minutes afterward. I was also drinking LIV hydration lemon lime flavor powder stuff. This was mixed into my handheld water bottle. The powder packet says to mix it with 16 oz of water. My water bottle was only 12 oz, so the hydration was a little more concentrated than it should’ve been. Also, 12 oz is too small for me for this distance. I didn’t finish my water in the bottle but I would’ve preferred to have 16oz that was better diluted.
So, the fuel was the hydration powder + 3 Gu energy gels. Strawberry banana and 2x raspberry lemonade. Took one before the race started and it was fine. Took another 45 min in and it was okay. Took my 3rd one at 1:30 and basically started feeling nauseous from that point onward. It felt like I had a bunch of blobs of goo in my stomach, which was true, and my stomach was like “What the fuck is this? What am I supposed to do with this?”
In hindsight, I think I took too many gels. I just feel like nutrition advice with these types of things is geared toward skinny, fitter athletes. Like, maybe you need a Gu every 30-45 minutes if you’re running a 7 minute mile and you weigh 130lbs. For me, it just felt like too much. Plus the sloshing of hydration water … it was all too much.
As you can tell from the above diagram, I walked a lot from mile 8 onward. Way more than I wanted to, but every time I started running my stomach would feel a little … lurchy. I listened to my body and settled down a bit, which helped, but which also wrecked my A Goal time and even my sub-2:20 time goal. Ah well.
The east side of the run also had some surprise hills, including one fairly steep “fuck off” hill that I feel like most of us walked. It was also around that hill that I saw Jenny Conlee, the keyboardist of the Decemberists, playing an accordion for the crowd. That was nice!
So, the big takeaway of this is nutrition and fueling during the run. Something I could’ve trained for months ago but decided to eat M&Ms and drink Powerade instead. Which wasn’t bad! But running long distance at a tempo pace makes it nearly impossible for me to chew food. Could’ve walked; didn’t. But then I did. A lot. So I don’t fuckin’ know, folks.
Once I hit 13 miles, the marathon app told me that I was right about at 2:29 and that I was projected to finish at like 2:29:56. So I hauled ass to the finish line, or at least it felt like I did. I saw a video a friend of mine took close to the finish line and I look like I am running to the bathroom. C’est la vie!
One more thing: anti-chafe. It did me good. My nipples are fine, my inner thighs are fine. The only thing that hurts are my legs and the middle of my upper back, which is weird.
Post-Race
Just a shit-ton of goodies. Food and drinks and a free Voodoo doughnut and a beer. Ran into friends and chatted. There was an alpaca that I forgot to pet. Really great stuff. I (thankfully) didn’t feel too damaged from the run. My legs hurt, yes, but not too bad. Maybe I will change my tune tomorrow morning.
Also just wanted to mention that the Portland Marathon had the best safety pins I’ve ever used. They were quality! Probably brand new, which, okay, bad for the environment, but man they were nice.
I walked home after chatting with friends, which was an adventure on its own. Nothing like running a long distance and then walking some more. Though I did meet a guy while traversing the Hawthorne Bridge who had run the full marathon and was straight up hobbling. Guy looked wrecked. In good spirits though. Such is the way with marathons, I guess.
And that’s that. My first half marathon. Would I do it again? … Well …
I signed up for the Holiday Half in December. Did that a while ago, but always with the intention of downgrading it to a 5 or 10k if this half really sucked.
Right now, I don’t have an answer. This was tough, and while I do like to push myself, I don’t feel a need to do it with distance. The idea of running a full marathon sounds like shit right now. To run another half?…
We’ll see. Give me a week.
The next race is the ORRC Dual Duel, which is supposed to be a relay run but they have a 10k solo option which is what I’m doing. In two weeks! It’s just doing laps around a track as far as I know. I think, perhaps, that I’ve gone insane.
Until then.
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