Nike Campus Run

Sunday I drove over to Beaverton and ran around the Nike campus on their woodchip trail. Last year on Portland Marathon day I had run the Nike campus, so I thought I'd make it a new tradition. This year though I stopped off downtown to see the marathon finish line and instantly regretted leaving my camera in the Jeep. A sea of people wrapped in Portland Marathon blankets after the finish line- wow! Two announcers going non-stop reading names as a steady stream of people finished. Saw Sandy come in at 4:32 and Frank was doing his first marathon ever and finished at 5:05. The web site said they had 70 entertainment groups along the route and 7000 runners. OK- next year I'll be one of the 7000.
Drove out to the Nike campus and the gates were closed so the guard said to park in the street and walk up to the path. It's woodchip even on the bridges except were they cross the road, then wood planks. I started out and was going slow and then had a Neese moment and had to go to the loo bad, not the kind where a guy can stop and water a bush. After the first lap I was only doing a 9+ pace, but couldn't really think about it, I had passed a block and a half both sides solid with port-a potties at the marathon site- oh well. After 3 miles, my heartrate and breathing were out of control trying to focus, so I saw the main guard shack and went down and he let me use his bathroom- talk about fancy and that's just the guardhouse! After that I finished the rest of the second lap and didn't feel like running more, but it was only 4 miles and I saw a path going between some buildings so I ran down that and then came to a big lake (picture) and ran around the lake. That was strange as the sidewalk path was all angles so I had to run 2-3 steps and turn all the way around the lake. They had statues that looked real- the picture has a fisherman, but he's hard to see. On the other side of the lake was a women sitting on the grass drawing and she looked so real I slowed down to look and realized it was a statue. Anyway, finished the run at 4.6 miles in 43:30 a 9:27 pace and a minute a mile slower than my last run.