Today was the fourth day of
the Mainly Marathons Northwest Series. Today,
we were in Clarkston, WA again running the same route as yesterday.
I got to bed early, and I
got a good night’s sleep. For once, I
didn’t feel like I was dragging myself out of bed in the morning.
We didn’t experience as
wide of a temperature range today. It was
warmer at the start, but it didn’t warm up as quickly in the late morning
hours.
My goal today was the
same as yesterday. I just wanted to keep
my time under six hours. As usual, I
planned to mostly run in the first half, so I could do a lot more walking in
the second half, as it got hotter.
Yesterday, I picked out
two small hills to walk during my first seven laps, and I started walking two
more hills later. Today, I was walking
all four of those hills from the very beginning.
During my first lap, I
had another nice sunrise view through the river valley.
For the first three laps,
I was running by myself. I was able to
run most of laps four and five with Ken.
I think those laps were a little bit faster, but they seemed easier. In laps six and seven, I was on my own again.
At the halfway point, my
time was similar to the last two days.
That gave me room to do more walking in the second half.
Yesterday, I noticed my
heart rate was spiking in the second half of the race. It was a hot sunny day, and I probably didn’t
realize how hard I was working.
Today, it didn’t get as
hot. We had some clouds, and I sometimes
felt a cool breeze through the river valley.
I kept an eye on my heart
rate, and I never saw it get any higher than 119. As long as it stayed low, I could continue
running.
I ran at the same race
for three more laps. With four laps to
go, I could afford to walk for the rest of the race, but I wanted to find
someone else to walk with. The people I
walked with on other days did shorter races today.
As I was finishing lap
ten, I noticed that Clyde was also finishing a lap. Clyde had taken the earlier start, but we
each had four laps to go.
Clyde is a power
walker. He walks the entire race, but he
walks faster than anyone else on the course.
I knew if I walked the last four laps with Clyde, I would stay on pace
to finish in six hours.
Walking at Clyde’s pace
forced me to work, but I really enjoyed those laps. It turns out
Clyde and I have similar backgrounds. We
have more in common than I would have guessed.
After power walking the
last four laps, I finished in 5:41:52.
There are two styles of
finisher medals for each state. Today, I
got the second Washington medal.
There are two races left in this series. For the next two days, we’ll be in Idaho.
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