the waiting is the hardest part

Pictures from the race still haven't posted on the Portland Marathon's website (and it sounds like they won't be until Tuesday), but hopefully this will tide you over.  Mr. Bump didn't get very many pictures of me because it was crazy packed and just hard. They would be searching the crowd for me, and by the time they saw me, there wasn't time to snap a picture. Because I'm just that fast.

Here's one from the start line, just before I entered the F corral (ominous?) and the porta-pottie line that would kill 20 minutes between when Mr. Bump and I parted company and when the race started.

It was kind of chilly but not too bad. I was amazed at the amount of clothing people kept on. I was expecting to see a lot of clothing get shucked, based on what people were wearing, but I saw runner's near the finish line with jackets and layers! I went with short sleeves, running skirt, compression knee-highs. I thought that I was going to have some chafing issues as I kept needing to adjust at the start, but once I got going everything seemed to settle down and behave itself.

This one is kind of a where's Waldo deal. See if you can spot me, based on what you know I'm wearing from above.

As always, there's some old geezer in my way. Take a good look at my thigh, because that's the best shot of it you're going to see.  And then brace yourself.

*Moment of silence for my body image*

Man is that terrible. I'm sure there are more of those to come in the official race photos.

Anyway. Moving on!

The Portland Marathon collects a whole bunch of data from the timing chip, and uses it in a matrix to show you all kinds of cool (or depressing) information about your race, and how it relates to everyone else's. Like this:

It shows your gun time, chip time, and where you placed. I love how it tells you how many runners you passed, and how many passed you, in the final 6.2. Not too shabby, considering the out of body experience I was having at that point.  In the top 2/3rds of finishers, middle of the pack for my gender. I'm amazed there were only 8402 finishers. Supposedly 15,000 people had registered. Where were they?

Then it also shows you your pace and speed per mile/km.  It's kind of hard to see the "Your Finish" but it basically shows you who/how many people finished before you/after you (also shows their names and division/sex). You can scroll forward and back to see who finished ahead or behind you. The different colors are for men/women/runners in my division. I like seeing all those guys behind me. :)

 This one shows (yellow arrow) where I was on the course when the winner crossed the finish line.

That's mile 12.

Where I was when the Female Winner crossed the finish line.

Winner of F35-40 division

 You can also input someone else's bib number and find out where they were in relationship to you. Which would be very cool if I had known anyone else running this race. You can also see in the "Section MPH" area, that my mph deteriorated in the last half, and especially in the last 6.2.

I am still gathering my thoughts about the race itself, but this one was definitely a different experience than the last marathon. The size of the race and the number of spectators aside, it just felt different. I was somewhat fractured in my preparation, both physically because of nagging injuries, and mentally because we were traveling with my parents. I just never really had time to sit down and puzzle out my race plan. I had a vague idea of when I was going to take my gels, which wasn't correlative to water stations. I winged it on hydration, bring some gatorade but also drinking the course drink and water. While it was painful and exhausting, there were times when I definitely felt the physical and the mental uncouple. It wasn't exactly an out of body experience, but that's the closest term I can think of to describe it. I couldn't get myself to even sprint to the finish line because despite yelling at myself to, I wasn't able to reach down to wherever the mental/physical handoff happens. I would think it, but my thoughts didn't translate for my body. It was weird, I'll tell you that.

More later...once those race photos come out. Then I can give you a mile by mile play by play.