Portland Marathon

Last month I ran the Portland Marathon. It was a partly rainy day, but I was very comfortable on the run and felt great. Well, as great as you can feel running 26.2 miles.
Started out driving downtown that morning with Sarah, Tom W, and Natalie. Tom works downtown and his building has a gym in it with showers. Unfortunately his parking garage wasn’t open, so we parked in a Smart park garage. Got to the start line and found the porta-potties and then bag drop. Then it was time to get in the massive crowd to start. Natalie was in front and she kept going. I got stuck and lost sight of her. She ended up in the first wave. I was in the third or fourth wave.
Started out and stayed within sight of Anita, Doug, and Dr Tom for two miles and then fell back and just ran at my pace and looked around. Saw a beautiful girl about Natalie’s age, so I used not having a watch (let Natalie use my GPS) to ask the girl how long we’d been running. She said she somehow turned off her timer on her watch. I said ok and started to move on. She sped up and asked me a question. This was at mile 3 or 4. Form then on we talked and yelled at the musicians and did random high-fives with the spectators and talked some more. At about mile 6 or 7 on an out and back I happened to catch a glimpse of pink at the 3:20 pacer group going the other way and saw Natalie. Yelled and we both went back a little to high five each other. Holy cow- 3:20 pace!! Saw Tom W and high-fived. Saw DeDee at one point. We stayed within sight of the 4:15 pacer the whole time and going up to the St John’s bridge we passed him and then going down the bridge he passed us.
Middle picture is of us on the St John's bridge. We were keeping a very steady 9:20 to 9:40 pace the whole time. I think I yelled encouragement at the musicians one time too many though. At mile 21 I gave her a big hug and had to slow down. She was a ton of fun and made that a very enjoyable marathon. After that I just ambled along by myself, but kept running even though I saw tons of people stopped and stretching or walking. At mile 22 I saw Angela at a water stop. Then about a half mile later I saw my old training partner Ceselie, gave her a hug and she said Natalie was way up there and flying. At mile 23 or so they were giving out beer outside a brewery, but that didn’t sound good, so I kept going.
At mile 24 crossed over to downtown and then at mile 25 I wanted to speed up, but didn’t have anything left, so I just kept running the same pace. Got to the finish at 4:24:06 good for 270 out of 432 for my age group and 3247 out of 7665 overall and a 10:05 pace. Got some chocolate milk and a crèamsicle and saw Tom W. Then found Natalie and that amazing woman did a 3:27:11!!!! Good for an astounding 16th in her age group out of 618 and 564th overall out of 7665. Top 2% of women! A 7:55 pace. We went to Tom's work and took a shower- that was nice having that only a block away. After that we went to the Vida café on Alberta street and had beer and organic food and Natalie had their famous bloody marys. Top picture is of Natalie and I at the finish line picture place.
Oh yeah, signed up for the Vineman full ironman next year. Also plan on doing the Boise half iron next year.