DATE: July 4, 2007
LOCATION: Sauvie Island, Portland, Oregon
This has become a tradition for me, to run a marathon on the 4th of July. In the two prior years I had a great time at this event, but this was the worst. It was hot! (at least for a marathon) The high that day was in the mid-90’s and that made for a run in the 70’s and low 80’s. This was the worst year for the organization of this race as well. I got there plenty early which was good, but that was not there down fall. In the first half I ran pretty well, a time of 1:51, which usually would be slow, but given the weather, I was fine with it. I was hoping to run a 3:40, so I thought I was in pretty good shape, but I would have to keep up my speed. The second half is when things fell about for me and the race. When coming up to the aid station at mile 18, I was told they had no more cups, and given the heat that was not a good thing. They offered to pour water into my mouth, which they did, but I heard from other runners that they had been out of cups for a while. How do you run out of cups? They changed the course at the end and had us ran up this gravel path to the finish, which was a huge struggle, I remember being hot and tired and had to walk a little. I ended up running a 1:57 in the second half, which gave me a time of 3:48. I felt bad because at about mile 16-17 a woman asked me how fast I was going to run, and I said “about 3:40”. She told me that that would qualify her for Boston, but when things fell apart for me they fell apart for her too. To make things even worse, it took me an hour in and a half to exit the island. At that point I swore I would never do this race again. But they improved things drastically in the following year.
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