Notes
Another great Vernonia Marathon experience. The night before the race, I looked for my notes from last year and found that I did not make any notes...other than four smiley-faces. Not super helpful...so I promised myself to make notes this time, even though my lack of notes did not have a negative impact on my race. SO...listen 2013 Barb: TRUST your TRAINING and just go RUN. :) and/or, read these notes if you want.
Race morning: 6:30am alarm, black coffee, Daves Good Seed toast with chunky peanut butter. mmmmmm.
7:30-ish banana...GU at 9am...no stretching or warm-up to speak of.
finished 2 full bottles of water between 7-9am. pottied a few times (home, Banks, Vernonia...if you must know.)
Discovered the DRY route to the starting line...don't walk through that wet grass...just go a bit further up the hill to the road, take a left & walk about 100 yards to the start.
I kept my jacket on until 5 min pre-start; planned to ditch it but Liz's husband offered to take it along with hers. nice. Found $20 in the pocket and felt super happy that the jacket was snatched from the Goodwill box!
Met some girls in the starting area...asked if they had a target pace or goal finish. Cute-skirt Katherine said she was planning on 8 min pace for the full. I became a skirt-chaser for the first half while she busted out 7:30's & lost me (sand-bagger.)
I love this course. Nice, gradual downhill (with one roller, up & over in a minute) to Vernonia proper...flat around the baby lake (pond?) then onto the lovely paved trail through the woods. The first hour was a matter of locking in a reasonably steady & hopefully sustainable pace. I tried to focus on ONE mile-marker at a time, only looking at my watch once per mile (okay, sometimes 2-3 sneak-peeks if I got passed or the people in front of me seemed to be pulling away.) Miles 8-12 were distinctly uphill...but not steep. Tophill is a rush with the nice crowd of volunteers and half-marathon finishers cheering us on our way... Tracy & Julia wearing their "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" costumes, Russ tracking results...Brian & Zoe giving a meaningful High 5 as I head up the one very steep switch-back of this course. The climb levels off around the Stub Stewart entrance and by mile marker 14 the blissful downhill begins. Up ahead I see 27-year-old Katherine from Ohio (yes, I have now looked her up...why not?) We chat for a minute once I catch her...then off I go as long as gravity will carry me down the gradual decline toward the finish. Negative thoughts creep in but I replace them with a prayer and some practical reminders. Tight abs to support my back... land softly, treat the quads & feet gently so they will hold up for the final, hard hour...don't think about that final hour yet. One mile marker at a time. When I hit marker 18 I had a glowing thought that I would be climbing up & over the big bridge in Portland...it gave me an extra dose of gratitude to be descending still. The course flattened out by mile 20...or 21? So gradually, it's hard to say without official elevation graph that I refuse to study. Around this point I hear some fast feet behind me...quickly closing the gap. I peek at my watch to confirm that my pace is on track & remind myself that my goal finish is more important than coming in ahead of one more runner. I assume it's Katherine & decide she deserves to pull ahead after her solid first half. It's a tall, young gal in a "PRC Race Team" singlet instead. We chat a bit, both of us working hard; I'm enjoying her company. She askes if I know how many are ahead of us...we both have a vague idea that we are in the top 10 gals...but with no spectators to give us better info, we agree that you just can't know who is on the course after the first half. At that point we had averaged approx 7:45 pace. I ask if she has a goal finish time and she confides, "I'm dropping out at 22." wait...what? She is sponsored to run Eugene in two weeks...this was a training run for her. I suggest she just win Vernonia then run Eugene as a victory-lap & she laughs. Regarding the final four miles...I will just say it was very, very tough but I felt proud of myself for pushing through the misery. It was overwhelming if I thought of all four miles, so I forced myself to just run steady to marker 23...24...25. I felt like I was crawling, but my watch showed a decent 8:20 pace & I knew that if I could hold it close to that I would hit my 3:25 stretch-goal target. The crowd of friends & volunteers at the final turn onto the track made me smile big. Friends who had finished the half, Amy Walker, Jan V...dedicated volunteer, Laurie Bond, who had been there since 6:30am, Daphne who came out just to be a supportive presense...I fought some tears & made the final lap around the track. My first sight of the clock showed 3:24:50...and I knew there was no way I would cross in 9 seconds or less...but I felt very, very happy to know that I was about to achieve my goal. I learned after the finish that I was second for the women; crazy-wonderful-icing-on-top. The post-race bliss was complete with hugs from Brian, Zach, Zoe & lots of forgiving friends who pretended not to notice my stink.