DATE: January 25, 2009
LOCATION: Gresham to Hillsboro, Oregon
Once again, I was wanting to run a fun and unique race for Yours Truly. Since this was an online compiling of run times, you have the option of running wherever you want on a specific date. Now the Maniacs have a rule that these "virtual" races don't count unless you meet the minimum runner count, but at this time they had no such rule.
In Portland we have a light rail line that runs across the city of Portland. It's
called the MAX, and it runs west to east and east to west. So I looked online and figured out that it would be a little more than 31 miles to run from one end to the other on the city streets. So I parked my car in Hillsboro at the start of the MAX line and took the train to the end in Gresham.
Once I got to Gresham I got ready to run. In the days leading up to this day, it was very cold and we had some snow in some areas. I didn't realize that Gresham had a good amount of snow. The combination of cold weather and snow on the ground made it hard to get going.
Since I live on the west side of Portland, I don't run on the east side much, so it was fun to see a new part of town. Once I got about 10 miles or so into the run, the snow was gone, but the cold weather was still hanging around.
The hardest part of the run was about mile 18-20, when I had a 750 foot climb and being a higher altitude the snow was about an inch thick which made it a challenge. Once I got to the part of town I know pretty well, the weather warmed up and it felt better, but I was totally tired and wanted to be done. This made the last 5-8 miles hard, and I was happy to get back to my car. Overall the 50k took me 5:25:17, which wasn't bad.
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