Portland Marathon
– by Leah Hoyer

I’ve done it, my first marathon. Thank you, Portland, for putting on a great race, and for holding it at a time of year when conditions were perfect. 60 degrees, overcast, well supported and with enough spectators and entertainment to pull me through (I never knew how uplifting the opening riffs of “Call Me Al” could be until I heard them at mile 18). My one complaint is that the course was a little long—it was like 26.2 miles or something. That’s a long way to run.

I had a good day. Slept well, my nutrition was on, my clothing wasn’t rubbing in uncomfortable ways, and while I was aware of my muscles, no joints were screaming at me. I pushed it, but I didn’t die. My heart rate averaged 185 (my lactate threshold is 182, so that’s about what I would have wanted). The one thing I would have changed in my preparation is that I would have made my longest run about two miles longer. My longest training run was 20.5 miles. On race day, my muscles started to fatigue around 21/22 miles…go figure. There is always that balance to strike between training and overtraining, but I know I could have done a 22/23 mile training run, and my day would have been even better for it.

That said, though, I’m happy with my first marathon. I finished in 3:43, which at age 35 even qualifies me for Boston. When I crossed the line, though, that wasn’t a reason to celebrate. Why in heck would I put myself through that again?! But, given a given a couple of days to recover and allow short term memory loss to set in, I’m thinking that could be pretty cool. I’ve never been to Boston. Maybe their course won’t be so long.