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Portland Marathon #2 race report. Marathon #26. What a good time! Erin, Megan, Lisa, and I all traveled down on the train on Saturday morning. We got into Portland, checked into our hotel, and whipped on down to the expo. I only spent $21, which is probably a record for me! Woo hoo! After the expo Matt took us on a lovely tour of Portland on the way to the Spaghetti Factory. OMG what FUN we had! Betsy, Matt, Marie, Jessica, Erin, Megan, Lisa, and I…a dangerous crew! We laughed and laughed and carbo loaded and had FUN!
Sunday morning was chilly and damp, but no rain. It had been raining, but I don’t think we felt a single drop on the entire race. We started back with the 5:00 pace group, figuring we might lose them. We weren’t concerned about our time, though. Just wanted to have fun! I have a torn gastroc that is healing and I was being careful on it, since I have Nike Women’s Marathon in two weeks.
We had a blast. The weather was a bit on the chilly side, but not too bad. Most of the route was really pretty…the St. John’s Bridge is just beautiful. My calf talked to me on and off and I had to biofreeze it a few times, but overally it held up beautifully! The company was great. We didn’t talk as much as we have in the past, but I think that’s partially because there was SO much to look at (and I was so focused on not injuring that calf again I was overthinking a lot).
At mile 17 Erin wanted to run it in and had the plan that we’d take turns being pace leader for the last 6 miles. I thought that sounded like a good plan, but wasn’t quite sure about running from 17, so I suggested we walk through water stations. We had our plan! I was really hoping we’d do negative splits.
Unfortunately Erin came smack up against the wall about mile 22. Megan and I realized we’d lost her about that time so Megan called to make sure she was okay. She was, just wasn’t feeling the love. However, she did REALLY well and I think she finished MUCH stronger than she did in Seattle! You just never can tell what kind of day you’ll have on the marathon! You really can’t. The best laid plans of mice and runners, you know. So we both insisted that she take a Gu (sometimes it’s hard to feel like it when you really need it) and promised we’d meet her at the finish line.
Megan and I felt pretty good, though! We kept on running, stopping at most water stops. We ran through the last two and at mile 25 started targeting people to pass. It was going GREAT! I honestly think our last mile would have been our best mile (and it still might have been). She targeted green shirt chick, and I pushed on the gas but hit a hole in the pavement that my heel collapsed into and *TWANG* went my calf. Ouchie ouch ouch! I don’t think I did any serious damage, but it was enough to cause it to cramp up BIG time! This was mile 26.1! At least is wasn’t mile 1! So we (okay I) limped it in, but still felt VICTORIOUS!
After all, any day you can finish a marathon standing upright, no barf in your shoes, smile on your finish line photos is a VERY good day!

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 10/04/2009
• Time: 07:09:46
• Total Time: 5:13:45.20
• Calories: 2471
• Distance: 26.6 miles
• Average Pace: 11:47.77/mile
• Max Pace: 4:57.6/mile
• Ascent: 5,005.64 ft
• Descent: 4,877.9 ft