Today was day three of
the Mainly Marathons Northwest Series. I
usually find the third day of a series to be the day it starts getting
difficult. I found the first two days to
be difficult, so I expected today to be a struggle. I slept better than the previous night, but I
still didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted.
My biggest concern was a tight Achilles tendon.
The temperature at the
start was warmer than the previous two days.
Also, I was taking the 6:30 start instead of the 5:30 early start. For those reasons, I didn’t have to be afraid
of getting too cold if I took walking breaks in the first half of the race.
Today, we were running an
out-and-back route that was mostly along the Snake River in Clarkston, WA. I was staying in Lewiston, ID, which is just
across the border. It only took about 10
minutes to drive to the race venue from my hotel in Lewiston.
Our route started in a
parking lot, where the aid station was set up.
After leaving the parking lot, we ran around a small park. Then we continued onto the Green Belt Trail,
which is a paved bike path alongside the river.
We ran almost a mile before turning around to come back the way we came. To complete a marathon, I need to run 14
laps.
For the third straight
day, I started out drinking Coke before switching to Gatorade. Today, it seemed to help more, although I was
still tired.
Today’s course was mostly
flat, but there were a few small rises.
From the first lap, I was walking two of these small hills and running
everywhere else.
The first time I got into
the river valley, I saw a nice sunrise through the valley. I would’ve taken a picture, but I left my
phone in the car. This is a picture that
was posted to our Facebook group.
My legs never got cold,
but I still started the race with a jacket and gloves. I was able to take off the jacket after my
first lap. I took off the gloves after
my second lap.
I noticed some discomfort
in my Achilles tendon, but it was mild.
It was something I could easily tune out, and it never got worse.
I continued to walk the
same two short hills for the first half of the race. Twice, I did a little bit of extra walking
while talking to a friend.
Despite taking walking
breaks, my time at the halfway point was only about a minute slower than
yesterday. The hills I was walking were
so short that it didn’t slow me down much.
Starting with my eighth
lap, I slowed it down a bit. I was still
mostly running, but I picked out two more small hills to walk.
During my ninth lap, I
noticed something unusual. I happened to
glance at my watch, and I saw that my heart rate was 139. In the previous two races, I rarely saw it
get any higher than 110.
In the next lap, I looked
at my watch again, and my heart rate had climbed to 143. That’s about where it tops out in a race
where I’m going all out. This wasn’t an
all-out effort. I didn’t feel like I was
working any harder than I did in the first two races, although today was a
hotter day.
I considered doing more
walking, but I wanted to wait until I caught up to my friend Karen. I caught up to Karen early in the next
lap. Then I started walking with her.
I initially assumed I
could walk with Karen for a lap or two, but I would eventually need to do more
running. As it turns out, our walking
pace was fast enough that I was able to walk with Karen for the rest of the race.
After walking for a
while, I looked at my watch. My heart
rate had settled down to 100. After
another lap, I looked again, and it was 95.
With two laps to go, I
needed to make a bathroom stop. While I
was already stopping at the aid station, I also went to my car to get my phone,
so I could take a few pictures of the course.
Karen went ahead, so I needed to run until I caught up to her.
This picture shows the
park we were running through at the beginning of each lap.
These pictures show our
views of the Snake River from the trail.
Without doing any more
running, I was able to finish the race in 5:53:42. That’s slower than the previous two races,
but my only goal was to keep my time under six hours.
Today, I got my first of
two Washington medals. Each one will
have a different design.
The runner hitting a
major milestone today was Keenan Haga.
Keenan got an extra medal today for completing a Macon. That requires some explanation if you don’t
know who Larry Macon is.
Larry Macon was the first
runner to ever run 100 or more marathons in a calendar year. He did that several times. The first year he did that, he ran 105
marathons. Mainly Marathons has a
special medal for anyone who runs 105 marathons in a year. Today, Keenan reached that milestone.
I finished my race just
in time to get a picture of Keenan with his Macon medal. The medal is a caricature of Larry, who used
to be a regular at these races.
When I downloaded the
data from my watch, I looked at the graph of my heart rate. It got as high as 153. As you can see from this graph, there were a
couple laps where it was much higher than it had been in the first half of the
race. I can’t explain that, but I’ll
probably keep an eye on that tomorrow.
Yesterday, I discovered a good restaurant just down the road from my hotel. There are so many things on their menu that I want to try that I’m going back tonight. I may eat dinner there every night that I’m in town.
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