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10.10.2009
10.03.2009
Portland Marathon - Pre Race
The day before the Portland Marathon was partially spent sitting at my Aunt's house in Portland wondering how to pass the entire day. My goal was to relax but when you have the whole day at your finger tips it's almost like a bad joke. Boredom is a given. Not to mention that my folks were in town and were eager to spend the day wandering around and seeing the city - NOT sitting in their hotel room. Luckily there were a few formalities that I needed to take care of - visit the Expo and check into the hotel once Robin got into town - but other than that the ultimate goal was to stay off my feet as much as possible. I didn't really want a repeat of Vancouver where my mom and I walked to the Expo (what seemed like a good idea and a short walk turned into a sort of good idea and a long walk). At the same time, I didn't really want to sit around and watch tv in the hotel all day and I really didn't want to go out to eat anywhere to kill time. Side note - after several days of traveling (more about this in a minute) my stomach was not all too happy with me. Lesson learned: eating out for every meal, several days in a row, cannot be healthy. Back to the topic at hand - I figured that if I just moved REALLY slowly maybe the day would pass quickly.
This ended up working out fairly well. I spent the first few hours moving slowly and getting my pace bands ready. Normally one wouldn't have multiple pace bands but I was feeling a bit indecisive when I initially printed them out. My spoken goal for this race was to finish under 4 hours but since I had been training with folks that were shooting to qualify for Boston I figured I might be able to pull that off as well. The inner competitive athlete was telling me that 'I had trained at that pace (some of the time)'. And logic was saying that it wasn't realistic since I wasn't mentally prepared to go that pace. Those sneaky hidden goals - the ones you try and not admit to - always creep up on me.
After the pace bands were made I spent the remainder of the morning hanging out with the fam and waiting for Robin, Laura, and Jason to arrive. At around noon I got the call to head downtown to the expo. All in all that was uneventful and short. Then it was maxing and relaxing in the hotel - dozing and watching chic flicks. And lastly, the evening was spent with the fam at a local Vietnamese restaurant - my typical pre race meal of Pho Ga (essentially chicken noodle soup) - and then off to bed. Robin and I had a pretty early night - lights out before 9 PM!
Now for a more thorough explanation of my pre-race week. The week before the race I was informed that I would be traveling for work to do a face to face requirements gathering session for our next big project. I would need to head down to Florence, Oregon on Wednesday for the meeting on Thursday. This sort of threw a kink in my plans but such is life. Thankfully things sort of fell into place. The plan: I would travel down on Wednesday, work on Thursday and have the meeting, work on Friday from Eugene and then head up to Portland Friday night. From there I would stay at my Aunt's house and then meet up with Robin, Laura, and Jason on Saturday and race on Sunday. Sounds pretty good - a nice little stint on the Oregon coast, effecient work periods, face to face time with my coworkers in Eugene, a visit with relatives, and I got to skip out on the long drive the day before the race. Excellent!
Granted, this whole plan was a bit chaotic. Not only did I have to plan and pack for work and the race, but at the same time I had to pack up my office - while I was going to be gone folks would be moving me into a new office. Chaos at it's finest, and way too many things going on for me to focus appropriately. How I managed to get everything into a bag and be prepared for moving, a big meeting, traveling, and racing is beyond me. But, I did it and I'm alive to tell about it. Despite the fact that I now believe seafood marinara is a death sentence - my stomach will never be the same.
This ended up working out fairly well. I spent the first few hours moving slowly and getting my pace bands ready. Normally one wouldn't have multiple pace bands but I was feeling a bit indecisive when I initially printed them out. My spoken goal for this race was to finish under 4 hours but since I had been training with folks that were shooting to qualify for Boston I figured I might be able to pull that off as well. The inner competitive athlete was telling me that 'I had trained at that pace (some of the time)'. And logic was saying that it wasn't realistic since I wasn't mentally prepared to go that pace. Those sneaky hidden goals - the ones you try and not admit to - always creep up on me.
After the pace bands were made I spent the remainder of the morning hanging out with the fam and waiting for Robin, Laura, and Jason to arrive. At around noon I got the call to head downtown to the expo. All in all that was uneventful and short. Then it was maxing and relaxing in the hotel - dozing and watching chic flicks. And lastly, the evening was spent with the fam at a local Vietnamese restaurant - my typical pre race meal of Pho Ga (essentially chicken noodle soup) - and then off to bed. Robin and I had a pretty early night - lights out before 9 PM!
Now for a more thorough explanation of my pre-race week. The week before the race I was informed that I would be traveling for work to do a face to face requirements gathering session for our next big project. I would need to head down to Florence, Oregon on Wednesday for the meeting on Thursday. This sort of threw a kink in my plans but such is life. Thankfully things sort of fell into place. The plan: I would travel down on Wednesday, work on Thursday and have the meeting, work on Friday from Eugene and then head up to Portland Friday night. From there I would stay at my Aunt's house and then meet up with Robin, Laura, and Jason on Saturday and race on Sunday. Sounds pretty good - a nice little stint on the Oregon coast, effecient work periods, face to face time with my coworkers in Eugene, a visit with relatives, and I got to skip out on the long drive the day before the race. Excellent!
Granted, this whole plan was a bit chaotic. Not only did I have to plan and pack for work and the race, but at the same time I had to pack up my office - while I was going to be gone folks would be moving me into a new office. Chaos at it's finest, and way too many things going on for me to focus appropriately. How I managed to get everything into a bag and be prepared for moving, a big meeting, traveling, and racing is beyond me. But, I did it and I'm alive to tell about it. Despite the fact that I now believe seafood marinara is a death sentence - my stomach will never be the same.
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