The Portland Marathon!

 When I got home from the Reaper with my shredded fingers, one of the first things LaRue asked me was, "Are you still going to do your marathon tomorrow?"
And I told her that I was sad, but I didn't think I would be, because my fingers hurt so much, and they were just making me miserable.
To my surprise, she was a little bummed, I didn't think she even cared about my races. And if she did, that it was more in an annoyed sort of way, but she told me, "You can do it, no matter what!"
While it would be nice to believe that was true, I wasn't so sure, and I went to bed that night not having my running stuff laid out or set up, not having any alarm set, and telling myself (and Jordan:) that if by some miracle I woke up around 4:00 am, and my fingers weren't murdering me, then I would probably go ahead and do it.
I woke up at 3:15, and I was like, "Nooooooo!!!" I tried and tried to fall back to sleep after that, but I just couldn't, so I figured, I could lay there tossing and turning, and spend the day probably a little grumpy for punking out, or I could just get the crap out of bed and do this thing. So I did.
Jordan dropped me off in Portland with plenty of time to spare. By some miracle I even found the right corral- I had about forty-five minutes until the start of the race, so I found myself a cozy seat on a step, prepared to settle in until it was go time.
And then as someone was passing me, I happened to look at their feet, and my heart sank when I saw their timing tag, and realized that I had forgotten mine in the bathroom at home! Dang it!
As ever, Jordan is my total hero, he was almost home when I realized I'd forgotten it, so he hurried to pick it up and bring it back out to me. I got it on my shoe, and made it to my corral just as the race was starting, phewf!
I LOVED this race.
I did way better than I had reason to hope that I would. I started off running three minutes, walking one, repeat, repeat, repeat, and I did that to about mile 11.
Then I switched to running two minutes, walking one, but pretty quickly changed that to walking two minutes and running one. Around mile 21 I changed to walking three minutes and running one. . I know that doesn't sound impressive, and it's not, but it got me through it, and I feel pretty good about it. There were lots of times when I thought, I'm tired, I'm just going to walk the rest of the way, but I kept running my one minute intervals. Hmmm. It felt a lot more impressive than it's sounding, but oh well, I'm pleased with myself. I finished in 5:58:38, which is only two minutes and three seconds longer than my time for the Newport marathon last summer, and I had trained my heart out for that one! AND I hadn't run a crazy, hilly obstacle course the day before, and I wasn't running with shredded fingers. So I feel really good about it.

Here I am just coming off of St. Johns bridge, shortly before mile eighteen.

 

This might be my favorite race that I've run yet. I really liked the course, running over the bridges was awesome, and it was mostly nice and flat except for one good sized hill and few little ones.
The volunteers were fantastic, they just seemed really happy to be there, and they were so encouraging. There were plenty of water stations, and there were people cheering you on almost every step of the way, it was SO good! If I weren't moving, I would probably want to do this one every year, I'm so glad I got the chance to do it before we leave.

And the finish chute was really organized too, and they had lots of good food and drink options, all in little cups which made it easier to carry. They gave us flowers and a tree seedling, and in addition to the medal:

 Nice, right?

 You get a finishers shirt, a commemorative coin ('kay, not too sure what I'm actually going to do with that:) and a pendant that looks just like the medal, but less ostentatious for day to day wear:)
SUCH a good race.
 You know I love to get me some good cell phone pictures during my run, and heaven knows I take it easy enough to have the time to do it, but I couldn't this time on account of my mutant hands.
Here's a pic of my little picnic set up back at Pioneer Square while I waited for Jordan to pick me up.

 Bagels, grapes and string cheese never tasted so good, I tell ya.

So glad I did it!