Portland Marathon!

For those of you who are wondering, I finished the Portland Marathon in 3:50:54, faster than the 4hrs I was expecting to take.

I’ve noticed that in certified marathons I tend to run slower than I do on self supported long runs, or even some ultras. Now I think I’ve finally figured out why that is. Salt.
Whenever I run ultras or go for a long run on my own, I always bring Cell Salts with me, but in a normal 26.2 mi effort, I take whatever they’re offering (in this case, sports drinks, gummy bears, and at mile 24, Beer!)

Because I wasn’t getting all the salt I needed, I started cramping up at about mile 19. I have to say… it was odd to look down at my quads and be able to visibly see them ball up with every step. I slowed down, stretched, and within a couple minutes I was back up to a relaxed run. I finished out the race, got some chips, and was feeling better soon after.

I know it is a “rookie mistake,” and as a Marathon Maniac you’d think I’d know better, but you can be certain I wont make that same mistake again.

Now about the course, I thought it was fairly scenic, fast, and well supported. There was one little out-and-back during the race that I know some people were complaining about, but I loved it; it was completely flat, and as a slower runner, it was my only chance to watch the leaders running.

I was excited to see so many Marathon Maniac there! I know there was a plethora of marathons going on around the country, but there was still over 50 Maniacs at the Portland race.

I got to also see plenty of the Team Red Lizard members I run with on Mondays.

I had carpooled over to the race with one of the other Maniacs, Marathon-Freak, who lives less than a mile from me, and his mom, aunt, and sister. Steve - Marathon-Freak, finished about 15 min ahead of me, and so we hung out talking to a lot of the other Maniacs there, and some of my Red Lizard friends, why we waited for the rest of his family to finish the marathon walk.

Some of the Maniacs we talked to ran a 50k race the day before Portland, and will be running 2 marathons next weekend, and 2 more the weekend after, and so-on and so-forth. Crazy People…. I want to do that! I do have a big run coming up next month though, so I want to be in top form. I’ll put up a posting about it in about a week, so stay tuned.

Until next time, Keep running!

Tim Lawson