Finishers!! 2007 Portland Marathon

It was my 3rd marathon, but the first one I was able to run the entire thing.

It was good!! We (mom and I) started off at a decent pace. The beginning is nice and distracting because there are so many people around. I was a little nervous to see how my knee would react. Around mile 3 I felt a few pains and got kind of scared. Mom suggested to just keep going and as long as I kept a mostly straight line it wasn't too bad. The pain eventually went away and I was SO excited that I was finally able to think about the rest of the race.

We saw Mark and Aunt Andrea (Uncle Jerry was also running) around mile 2 and 5 (we had a loop early on). It was fun to see them. And scanning for them in the crowd was a good distraction. Mark kept snapping pictures of me and had a huge smile on his face.

My running partner (Trisha) jumped in with us at mile 6 and ran with us until right before mile 17. At mile 8 there was a 4ish mile out-and-back that was flat and some what boring. But the fun part was looking for Jerry and Ian (my cousin, also running) coming the other direction. Again, a nice distraction. We eventually spotted them and met in the middle to high-five each other. At this point I was still feeling pretty good.

By the time we came out of the out-and-back, around mile 13 and 14, I was feeling pretty tired. There was a bridge around mile 17 and I heard we had to conquer a huge hill right before hand. With mom and Trisha's encouragement, I just pushed through my tiredness and knew that once we got to the bridge would start to be able to countdown to the end. 9 miles is still a long ways to go, but it's better than 17!

Trisha left us at the bottom of the hill and we chose to walk it since it was steep and long! We got to the top and ran across the bridge and down the other side and mom started lamenting about her joy in getting to mile 20, which was still 2 miles away. From mile 18 to 20 we were starting to hurt a little more. The scenery was nice and there were more spectators. All the water stations were a life saver!! And Red Bull was handing out cans a little after mile 18. We shared a can and chugged it down. The cold and fizz was SO nice!!

Between mile 20 and 21 we started talking with a guy running next to us. He was from California and on his 4th marathon. That was a nice diversion. About this time we were getting more and more tired, but no serious injuries, only the kind of aches and pains you'd expect from running 4+ hours. We decided at the 21 mile marker we'd start walking a little at each marker (we had walked a little at the water stations, but not much more than that). We ended up walking up any hills that were very dramatic, which weren't many and walking about half of mile 21. But we ran most of mile 22, which was partly downhill. And by that point, we were hurting but getting excited about finishing! Even though you only have 4 more miles left, it still feels like forever away!! We weren't quite in the home stretch, so were getting excited, but not too excited.

Between mile 22 and 23 we saw a MAX train that had been stopped because of what, we think, was an accident with someone on a bicycle. We kept going but were walking a little more frequently.

At the end of mile 24 and beginning of mile 25 we were crossing yet another bridge. At this point you couldn't believe how long 1.2 miles felt!! We ran off the bridge around the corner and then walked a little. Mom was really struggling so we decided to run/walk between the lights for the final stretch. We had about 8 blocks to go before we turned for the final 3 blocks. We ran from one stop light to the next and then walked the same distance and then ran again and continued that pattern until the turn. At the turn onto the final 3 blocks, we started scanning the crowd for our people. We saw them in the second block, Mark, Aunt Andrea, Aunt Cindy and her gang (Ian's mom and family) all shouting for us!! That was pretty cool. We turned a slight left and there it was, the finish!! We ran across at about the same time and then looked at each other as we started walking to the places were they take our timing chip off. We both felt pretty proud and thrilled! I had my chip cut off first but waited for mom before we walked any further to get our medals and space blankets. After that was about a 2 block loop that took you through a bunch of food stations, where I think we grabbed 1 of almost everything. The little cups of OJ and oatmeal cookies were especially good!! Then we walked out to meet our people. Mom called dad and was a little emotional. I was almost too as I realized we'd been trying to do this race for 3 years and were SO excited that we finished and were able to run the entire thing!! Both of us were skeptical about actually running the entire since we hadn't been able to before.

Today's quad and knee pain definitely seem worth every bit of the 26.2 miles that we ran yesterday!! Although going down stairs is rather uncomfortable. I truly feel like we accomplished a great thing and doing it with mom and accomplishing a goal we've had for 3+ years was something I'll never forget!!

Momma #3062, thanks for being a great race buddy and cheerleader all along the training process and running route! Your excitement and encouragement to keep going kept my feet moving!! As with the Anchorage Marathon, I won't forget the moment after the race started, before we got to the start line, as we looked around and at each other and wondered what the next 26.2 miles would hold. Love you!!

Jerry, #3054 now is time for your 'thank you' speech! Thanks for saying that I was the reason you were out there running, that meant the world to me! I'm SO thrilled for you!!

Ian #3984, I'm proud of you!! Only running up to 16 miles beforehand and going out there and pushing yourself the extra 10 was a awesome!! Good job!! And I can't wait to hear how the Tokyo marathon goes!

We are looking forward to next year's race... we've all (not sure about Ian yet) talked and plan to run it again ;)

Mom and I had PRs (Personal Bests) at this race! If you read my previous post, I noted that our first marathon time was 6:20 (we walked half). Our time yesterday was 5:24, just under an hour faster!!

You can view race results, runstats, and pix (which aren't up yet), here. My number was 3059. I'll post a few of my own pics tomorrow.

Another highlight was having my new name called as I crossed the finish line. Fun to have my first race as a married woman be a marathon!!