2009 Portland Marathon Race Report

I walked the Portland Marathon today, though the last few miles almost killed me. Pam asked for a race report, so I’m going to write one, even though this was far from a “race”. (Pam is an ultramarathoner and just completed a hundred-mile run, so a marathon is nothing to her. She would have finished second.)

In 2008 and 2009, I’ve spent my April through June training to run the marathon, but I keep getting hurt. My injury this year healed at the end of August, and it occurred to me that although it was too late to train to run the course, maybe I could walk it. Since I’ve been trying to walk 5-10 miles every day this summer, I decided to give it a go. I registered.

Last week, I put out a call for volunteers to walk with me and got three offers to help. So this morning, promptly at 7 am, I lined up to walk the marathon. (As I was waiting to start, I realized I had forgotten to eat breakfast. How stupid is that? Answer: Pretty damn stupid — but it didn’t seem to matter.)

My companions today included:

The redoubtable Chris Guillebeau, who writes one of the best damn blogs on the internet. Chris walked with me from the start to mile nine. He also carried my pack for me and paced me to roughly 15:15 miles, which was awesome.
Chris left me at mile nine to run home (literally) to his wife, Jolie, and Paul and Tiffany stepped in to take his place for five miles. They left me just after mile 14.
Mackenzie Smith, the master of getting fit slowly, joined me at mile 18 and stuck with me to the very end, putting up with my whining in an admirably stoic fashion. I couldn’t have finished the race without him.

How did I do? Well, when I walk through my neighborhood — reading books as I go — I average a 17-minute mile. That seemed like a reasonable target, so my goal was a seven hour, 26 minute marathon. I actually finished in 6:54:07.

My chip time was actually 7:01:25. Because there can be a 15-minute delay between when the first runner and the last walker cross the starting line, every marathon participant wears a microchip. At various intervals on the course, there are mats to record your progress. This chip time is your official time. But chip time doesn’t account for bathroom breaks, stopping to change socks, etc. My GPS watch automatically pauses when I stop to do any of these things, so that’s the time I use. It really doesn’t matter, though. Whether my time is 6:54:07 or 7:01:25, I’m proud of finishing.

Here are my official results:

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Look at that! I finished 13th from bottom for my age and gender. You know what? I don’t give a damn. Here’s the data directly from my GPS watch:

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You’ll note that my GPS watch clocks a distance of 26.54 miles, which is longer than the 26.2 miles in a marathon. There are several reasons for this:

My watch (a Garmin Forerunner 305) consistently overreports distance.
I’m sure I didn’t follow the optimal “line” through the course.
I left the course from time-to-time to use the portapotties and to swap foot gear.
I forgot to turn off the watch after I crossed the finish line. I spent a couple of minutes wandering the finishers’ area before I realized my mistake.

For my purposes, I choose to go with the 6:54:07 finish time, but use a 26.2 mile distance. Strange? Perhaps, but that’s fine.

How did the race go? It was the best of time, it was the worst of times.

Chris Guillebeau walked with me for the first nine miles. He spurred me ahead while we talked about blogging and world travel. I had a great time. The first mile wandered through downtown, up Salmon to Broadway to Davis. After a mile, we turned south on Front. We walked south on Front for about two miles, including a modest incline. At about 3.5 miles, we turned and headed back north on Front. This entire time, we aimed for a 15:15 pace, which was well ahead of the 17-minute pace I was aiming for.

The ninth mile looks a little slow, but that’s because it includes a portapotty break.

At mile nine, the course doubled back on itself, heading back down Front. Chris left to run home, and I was joined by Paul and Tiffany. Their fresh legs pushed me to some solid times. We walked briskly and chatted about life. They invited me to dinner tonight, but I declined. I told them that if I finished, I was going to eat chicken wings with Mac. They left me after five miles, just past the 14-mile marker.

By this time, my feet were sore. Very sore. I’d brought two pairs of socks, and had already tried all possible permutations with them, but there was no doubt that I had terrible blisters on both heels and on my right pinky toe. I pushed on, trying to ignore the pain.

From mile 14 to mile 18, I walked alone. To distract myself, I posted to Twitter and Facebook (yes, really) and listened to high-intensity dance tunes. Though my mental stamina was flagging, I kept at it. I marched up the appraoch to the St. John’s Bridge (mile 16), passing tons of walkers. I was having a good time. On the way down the bridge, I even jogged a little.

But by mile 18, my mental and physical reserves were beginning to flag. My feet were killiing me. How could I last another 8.2 miles?

How? With the support of Mackenzie Smith. Mac joined me at about mile 18, and he kicked my ass. As I whined about my ailments — “oh my feet”, “oh my shins”, “do you have any ibuprofen? any hydrocodone?” — he just kept on walking. At first, he let me set the pace. But when I started to flag — and boy did I start to flag — he walked slightly ahead of me, tacitly goading me to keep up.

Mac and I were fortunate to have two long downhill sections, and we jogged down both of them. Because I was wearing street clothes (yes, really), I looked foolish jogging, but I didn’t reall care. The change of pace felt like heaven on my feet. (You can’t really see our first jog because it’s absorbed in miles 21 and 22. But you can see the second jog in mile 23. I did a 13:27 mile! That’s about what I would have aimed for if I’d run the marathon.)

During the last couple of miles, I was in dark black place. If Mac hadn’t been there, I would not have finished. My feet hurt like hell. But Mac was there, and I did finish.

After the race, I took off my shoes and socks. I had gigantic blisters on both heels, as well as various other blisters around my feet. (Some are actually double blisters.) As Mac watched me put my shoes on, he stopped me.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “How tight do you have those tied?”

“Pretty tight,” I said. I showed him.

Mac laughed. “Dude, you need to loosen the laces. No wonder you’re in such pain.” I loosened the laces. The pain wasn’t gone, but my feet felt much better. I realized he was right. No wonder I was in such agony.

According to my “body bug” fitness monitor, I burned just under 3500 calories during the marathon. Some of you will understand that 3500 calories is roughly a pound of body weight. By walking a marathon, I only lost a pound. Good grief.

I always say that I take about 2000 steps per mile. I walked 26.54 miles today. According to my pedometer, I took 53,208 steps. That’s about 2005 steps per mile. Eerie, huh?

As I write this at 6pm, I’ve burned 4844 calories. I’ll end up having burned about 5500 calories for the day. Cool, huh? That makes up for the chicken wings I had with Mac, and the pork rinds and alcohol I consumed since returning home. But you know what? It’s nothing compared to the contestants on The Bigger Loser. The women aim to burn 6000 calories per day, and the men aim for 8000. Yes, they’re much larger than I am, but still…

Anyhow, I’m proud to have finished this race, but I’m glad I can cross this off my life goals list. I’d still like to run a marathon sometime, but it won’t be next year. Maybe in 2011?

Footnote: Call me crazy, but hours after finishing the race, I’m still wearing the finishers’ medal around the house, even though I’m all by myself this weekend. I think I’ll even wear it to bed. (I plan to go to sleep early.) Update: Did wear it to bed. Still wearing it the next morning…

Walk With Me

On my 38th birthday, I made a list of 101 goals that I wanted to accomplish in 1001 days. I last updated my progress on this list at the beginning of July.

One of the goals that means the most to me is “complete a marathon”. I’m not sure why, but I have it in my head that this is a major Life Achievement. Ideally, I’d run a marathon. In the real world, however, I keep getting injured. So far, running hasn’t been an option.

However, I realized a couple of weeks ago that after walking 5-10 miles nearly every day this summer, I just might be in shape to walk a marathon. So I signed up. This Sunday, I’ll be walking the Portland Marathon.

Chris Guillebeau plans to accompany me for part of the course (up to ten miles, he says). This is awesome. Walking and talking with Chris will be an excellent way to pass the time. I would love to walk and talk with you, too. If you’re free on Sunday and want to walk a mile or two with me, let me know. We’ll make arrangements.

Some quick facts:

The marathon starts at 7am in downtown Portland. It winds through downtown, then heads up across the St. Johns Bridge before returning to downtown.
I intend to walk the entire route. I had entertained the notion of running and walking, but I’m not going to do it. This is all walking.
I walk at an average pace. I expect to do approximately 17-minute miles. At this pace, I’ll complete the marathon in 7-1/2 hours. This sounds perfect.

So, how about it? Anyone want to join me for a mile or two — or twelve? Mac? Pam? Andy? Tiffany? Craig? Lisa? Lane? Walk with me!

Sam the Shih Tzu

The ride home on Tuesday the 20th was interesting.

About a mile into the ride, I passed a house and a little Shih Tzu came charging out at me. It was more comic than anything, of course, so I laughed and kept riding. I came to a stop at the highway a half-mile down the road, and what should go charging past me but the same Shih Tzu! Holy cats!

I’m not sure how it avoided being hit, but it did, and I was able to get traffic stopped so that I could retrieve it and carry it back to its owners. I learned that its name is Sam, so I’ll be able to call it by name in the future.

I rode to work yesterday too, but not today. My legs are tired and need a break, so I’m giving it to them. I’m on pace for a 50 mile week, which I consider good.

Actually, I dug back through my copious biking stats and discovered that when I was riding so much in 1998, I was averaging about 50 miles a week, too. So, I’m off to a good start for the year. I wish that I was actually losing weight, too, but I’m not. Maybe I really do need to be tracking calories in order to lose weight, regardless of whether I’m exercising. I’ve never been able to lose weight without calorie tracking. I just eat too much if I don’t.

I’ve also begun remodeling the Custom Box Service web site. There aren’t any actual changes posted yet, but I’ve begun to generate content, which is actually the most time-consuming portion of the task.

I’d like to construct a couple of PHP scripts to facilitate quotation requests and the like, but I lack the required PHP skills. I can modify scripts, but not create them from scratch. I may have the company buy me a book so that I can teach myself to do this, but it’s a low priority. Right now I need to get the web site up and operational.

I continue to be frustrated by my Computer Resources partners, but in a sort of turnabout, I think I’m beginning to frustrate them, too.

Biking Statistics

It wasn’t wet this morning, but sure was cold. It froze last night and the chill was still very much in the air as I left the house at 6:15.

The ride to Custom Box Service is nice in the summer when the morning temperatures are right around 60 degrees, but in the winter and spring the ride can be a chore. Low temperatures are a problem, but more common is a constant rain.

I don’t generally liking in either set of conditions, but I have some new clothes that are helping. Last fall I purchased a jacket and a pair of pants that actually keep me quite warm while keeping the rain out. Because of the new clothes, I’m able to ride on days that I normally wouldn’t.

So far this month, I’ve covered 79.0 miles on my bike. This isn’t a lot to a serious biker, but to a fat middle-aged man like myself it’s quite an accomplishment. As I gradually lose weight during the spring and summer, I hope to be able to get in 300 or 400 miles per month. If I’m able to get 200 miles during March I’ll be overjoyed. The 79.0 miles so far already give my my second highest number of miles ever for March.

As with everything I do, I tend to overanalyze my biking statistics.

I keep a detailed record of the number of miles that I ride, the amount of time that it took to ride them, the temperature during the ride, and my top speed during the ride. I keep a weekly and monthly summary of these statistics, and often find myself falling into the trap of riding to achieve some statistical goal (must average 17 miles per hour today!) instead of just riding for fun.

I don’t want to stop keeping the statistics. I know myself, and if I stop keeping the stats, I’ll stop riding. The statistics keep me going. Instead, I need to find a way to de-emphasize them so that they don’t become my focus. I want the riding, and the joy of it, to be the focus.

I love being out on the bike. (Okay, the dogs suck, as do certain motorists. And the poor quality roads in this section of Clackamas County. But mostly it’s good.)