#pdxmarathon

My journey to finishing my first marathon ever was a success, and I can happily say that I learned a great deal from the entire process.

 It’s always fun to feel the race day nerves, maybe it’s just being around hundreds of people that are equally as excited and amped about what’s about to happen, I don’t know. I do know that racing is never about getting first place for me, I’ll leave that to the professional racers, for me race day is about realizing a goal. About stepping forward, setting an intention, and trying to achieve it. Running is a personal accomplishment.

 My first goal while training was to simply finish. I thought “heck, this is my first marathon. I should be happy just to finish the damn thing.” However, as I really started to dig into my training and my fitness and speed started to progress I realized that not finishing was out of the question, and that an under 4 hour finishing time was my goal. Then I did a 20-mile training run that felt great, and I realized that I might be able to get closer to a 3:30 finishing time. This idea got me pretty excited as I realized I was in better shape than I anticipated.

 Regardless, I kept the under 4-hour goal as something I’d be happy with and said to myself that the best-case scenario would be right around 3:30. I mean, friends were saying that the real marathon doesn’t start until mile 22.

 Portland must have known that I was flying in from Atlanta to attend this race, because the weather was pretty ideal. The prediction was cloudy with temperature right around 60 with no anticipated rain. Great running conditions.

 The race started at 7am, and ran along the Portland waterfront. Looped up into what looked like some industrial areas of Portland and then crossed St. Johns Bridge around mile 9, and then into some north Portland neighborhoods along the Willamette River. Every mile or so had bands playing live music, and aid stations offering water/electrolyte drinks, as well as some gummi bear/pretzel stations.

 My plan was to start out relatively slow, get my body warmed up, and then start to crank it up around the half way point. I typically don’t eat energy gel or shot-blocks while I ran, so didn’t bring any of that with me. I planned on rotating water/electrolytes at each aid station. Things started out great. My first 3 miles were done at around 8:30min, around mile 6 I had sped up a little bit, at the halfway point my average pace was around 8min miles. I was on target for a 3:30 finish! I kept up this pace up until mile 22.

At mile 22 I realized that I was crashing. My legs were starting to cramp up a little and all the pounding of the asphalt was beginning to creep into my knees. My pace was starting to plummet, and I decided to stop at the next aid station and eat some gummi bears. It was too little too late though, and my last 4 miles were rough. I was average pace slowed down to around 9:45 min miles. My legs were feeling super heavy, my muscles were slightly cramping, and I just couldn’t get my legs to move faster. It was a strange feeling; my cardiovascular system was in great shape. I wasn’t breathing super heavily, I had plenty of breath, but I couldn’t get my legs to cooperate. I quickly realized that my 3:30 finishing time was out the window, but refused to let my desire to walk overtake me. When people say that the real marathon starts at 22-miles, they’re literally telling the you the truth. Running on legs that were that tired was pretty painful, and my stride went to shit, I felt like I was hobbling the last 4 miles to the finish line.

Crossing the finish line was glorious. I definitely felt a little zombie-esque, but it was none the less an amazing feeling. I was also perhaps a little delirious and let myself just be corralled by all the race volunteers that just sort of move you along. I felt like I was shuffling through a gauntlet of people just handing me stuff. Finishers T, I’ll take it. Finisher medal? Yep! Commemorative coin, why not? Here’s a necklace to remember the event. An Atlas cedar seedling to be planted? I’ll take it. A Rose, a bag of bread? Sure.

Once they’d successfully burdened me down it was time to hit the feeding trough, which was awesome! There were mountains of apples, oranges, bananas, yogurt, soda, water… All great things. However, I delicately sampled some fruit and yogurt as I wasn’t sure yet how things would settle in my stomach.

 The race ended with a beer and a burger! Though the day held plenty more beers and food to be consumed!  

 Lessons learned:

While I may not need nutrition on training runs, I think I’ll try it for anything over 20 miles. My game plan for next time is to eat a gel or something around mile 15, and have something in my system for the last push.

Train harder, and have a few runs on tired legs. Running on tired legs was much, much harder than I expected and I don’t think there’s any good way to prepare for it except to just do it.