LOCATION: Portland, Oregon
This was the first time I ran the Portland Marathon. It’s my “hometown” marathon. Often when people find out I’m a runner, I get asked two questions, “What you run Hood to Coast?” and “Have you run the Portland Marathon?”. In August of 2006, I ran the Hood to Coast with a team from my church. This was my first chance to do the Portland Marathon.
The Portland Marathon is a huge walker friendly marathon. My mom started to walk quite a bit, once I started running marathons. After having done lots of half marathons, she wanted to walk the Portland Marathon, so she signed up. But she didn’t want to do it alone, so she talked my sister Amy into doing with her. About two weeks prior to the marathon I took her on a 20 mile walk.
I didn’t have a hard in fast goal for this race. I wanted to break 3:40 if possible, but that wasn’t a huge goal. I remember the weather was perfect, it was cool and overcast. It was the largest marathon I had done at the time, I was very impressed with the expo, it reminded me of the Seattle Marathon expo, but seemed bigger. Within the first few miles of the race, I ran into a buddy from my Hood to Coast team, he ran ahead of me and I continued on. I also ran into a few Maniacs including Marc Frommer (who is in charge of membership) a local Portland Maniac. I remember running pretty well the first half. When going over the St John’s bridge I saw my Hood to Coast friend walking. I later found out that he pulled a muscle and was going to drop out at mile 15, but decided to walk (he ended up finishing in 5 hours). I struggled in the last few miles (doing 10 minute miles). I finished in 3:44 but really enjoyed the race. My mom and sister walked it in 6:30 (I think).
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