Dat Run

So it’s been a little over a week since the Portland marathon and I’m just now finally getting the chance to sit down and give a proper race recap due to a hectic week at work. Ahh. Portland. I could say, without a doubt, that Portland will one day be where I call home.  Going into the marathon I really had no idea what to expect. Six months ago I was having my second fasciotomy done to treat a case of compartment syndrome. Halfway into my training plan I was plagued with a stress fracture that kept me out for 8 weeks at which point I was only a month out from Portland by the time I recovered. There’s only so much training that one can do a month prior to a marathon after recovering from a stress fracture. Longest run of 10 miles a week before the marathon? Longest run ever being 16 miles? Yeah sure why not lets run a marathon. I figured that I could go maybe 15/16 miles before things would start to suck for me and I would have to dig deep to finish. Here’s a play-by-play (rather mile-by-mile) of how the marathon went for me. Right before the start: *Oh shit, I really really have to pee but the marathon is about to start in 10 minutes. Okay- I’ll make the line for the porta potty and hope it goes quickly* It was down to the second. As soon as I got out, my corral was starting. Mile 1: *me to my dad* holy shit. We really just started this. . Mile 3: @the-miles-of-trials jumped in and ran with me for a bit. I’m glad that he was able to make the drive up from Eugene for the marathon. What a solid guy. Miles 5-8: Running through the industrial district of Portland. Pretty boring scenery. I have to pee again. Crap. Mile 10: Stop at a porta potty along the course and take a gel out of my running pouch to have at the next water stop. So I rip open the gel, start running again, notice that my running pouch is now too loose and is bouncing around, I go to tighten the waistband, forget that I had already opened my gel, squirt GU all over my legs and shorts. I GU’d myself. My legs are sticky as hell and I’m running so uncomfortably. Mile 11: Finally get to the aid station where I grab two cups of water and I start splashing my frontal side in an attempt to get all of that GU off of me. It worked. Looked like I was trying to pleasure myself on the run. But it worked. Halfway mark: *ok that wasn’t so bad.. but it’s still really early and I gotta do this all over again.* Miles 13-16: Long stretch headed towards St. Johns bridge where the highest elevation gain was so I spent these miles trying to run as relaxed as possible knowing that the point in which I thought I would conk out was approaching along with said elevation. Miles 16-17: *Oh man… I still feel damn good and I just cruised through that incline. Still 10 miles to go though so don’t get ahead of yourself. Mile 20: *Isn’t this where people say that they “hit the wall” ??? I still feel really really good though. I kind of want to go run sub 7 minute miles… Wait no. That’s stupid. You’ll probably die out. More hills??? The wall will come. Run smart* Mile 22: My dad started to fade out and drop his pace a bit at this point. He was definitely feeling it. Miles 23-25: Okay I don’t know how, but, I felt better at this point than I did at the start of the race. I wanted to take off for a fast finish but I also didn’t want to leave my dad behind. I kept yo-yo’ing my pace going up ahead and then slowing back down so that he can catch up.  Mile 26: Isaac jumps back into the race with me and we talk about how we don’t know how the hell I was able to run this damn marathon. Finish: How the fuck???

Been waiting for this aaaallll year.

A super spoopy ghost to haunt your dash

never forget