Portland Marathon Recap #3: The Win

Okay, so honest truth: given the size and past results of the Portland Marathon, I knew there was a possibility that I’d be able to place in the top 5, maybe even top 3 women. However, every time I’ve gone to a race with “placing” in mind, I’ve stressed out and am almost never satisfied with the results, no matter if I live up to my own expectations or not. Therefore, I approached this marathon as laissez-faire as I could. After all, the only factor I could control was my own race, so that’s what I wanted to focus on. If I hit my time, that really was winning enough for me.

Of course, that’s not to say I didn’t want to race other women at all; I just wanted to save my competitive drive for the last few hard miles. Therefore, my race strategy—compliments of Coach J—was this: Whatever you do for the first 13 miles, don’t panic. If you run 6:35s or even slip into 6:40s, who cares? You’ll run the first half of the course uphill, so on the return trip, you can make up time. Bottom line: Don’t go out too hard. Then, get to mile 23, and in those last three miles, race.

This was a great strategy, and it worked . . .  at least for the first two-thirds of the race. I spent the first several miles cruising along comfortably, paying little mind to the fact that I was in third place. (Just to be clear: when I’m talking about “place,” I mean third/second/first place woman.) Honestly, I thought there would be more women in front of me at that point, especially considering that the half and full marathons started together. However, only one half marathon woman appeared near the front of the pack, so already at mile two, I found myself running down Natio Parkway behind just two tiny Japanese women and a bunch of men.

I was still marveling at how good my body felt—6:30s didn’t feel like work yet!—when I caught up to the second-place woman. We were somewhere between miles six and seven, just having turned onto a long, straight industrial road that would lead us to the one major hill on the course. She and I ran side by side for at least a mile, maybe more, and all I can remember thinking is, This lady is breathing way too hard for this early in the race. By the time we hit the hill, I could no longer hear her.

The next seven or so miles passed fairly uneventfully; I mostly spent them watching the pink shirt of the lead woman and the orange flag of the accompanying bicyclist bob up and down in the distance. This was the residential stretch of the race, and lots of spectators were out there cheering for me to “go get her.” It was surprisingly encouraging, especially because we all had our names printed on our race bibs, so people would shout, “Go Allison!” as if they knew me and really wanted me to catch the leader. (And, notably, this is where three of the four spectators who actually knew me were standing—so they probably did really want me to catch the leader!) However, I had no idea what that woman had in store for the rest of the race, so I was content to keep hitting my paces. If I could still see her at mile 23, I knew I’d be ready to “go for it.”

Unfortunately for me, that’s not quite how things worked out. Instead, I caught up on St. John’s Bridge, around mile eighteen, and by the time we made it back down the hill, I couldn’t hear the patter of her footfalls anymore. I was on my own. And when I say I was on my own, I was on my own. From that point through the end of the race, I think I passed three, maybe four men running the marathon; everyone else I caught up to was walking the half marathon. (The two race courses were essentially layered on top of one another—see my earlier blog post for further details.) Basically, the point is: when I got to mile 23, I had no one to race. It was just me, dodging walkers over uneven asphalt and slippery train tracks. So this is where it was easy to get defeated. Where was I going to get any adrenaline? How was I going to find the grit to finish hard when every part of my body was already hurting?

Luckily for me, I had practice in this setting. During this past training cycle, due to a wide variety of circumstances, I wound up running most of my long run workouts alone. As a result, I came up with all sorts of dumb tricks to convince myself to "keep going" when the going got tough. One trick: hypnotize yourself with a mantra. In this case, I co-opted one that had been offered by my friend T___: “Today’s the day.” Today’s the day. Today’s the day. Today’sthedayToday’sthedayToday’stheday.

Trick number two: use your arms. I originally learned this from my first coach, as advice for climbing hills when your legs are tired. My current coach took it one step further and showed me how “using your arms” actually rotated your core to generate more power with each stride. I don't often remember to focus on this, but when I do, it really works. And I remembered this time.

The last trick was arguably the hardest, but it was also the most effective, and that was ignoring my watch. At this point in the race, seeing a 6:45 mile wasn’t going to help me adjust my pace any more or less than seeing a 6:15, other than to make me feel defeated and give up on the PR I wanted so badly. Now was the time to buckle down and pour out whatever I had left; however that showed up on the clock was how it would show up.

So with my mantra and my arms, and without my watch, I bobbed and weaved my way through those last few miles. When I finally made it to the finish line, it was almost exactly like any other marathon finish I’ve ever experienced. I saw the time on the clock, I passed under the banner, and I felt that gush of relief that it was all over. There was no tape to break, no flashing lightbulbs, no paparazzi. I wobbled along on unsteady legs, up to volunteers who wrapped me in the standard finisher’s poncho and hung a finisher’s medal around my neck. A  few moments later, a woman came up to me and led me over to a photographer who took a picture of me shaking her hand (which, ironically, never made it onto the race website or into the Portland newspaper article, although the men’s winner and both half marathon winners are on there!). Then she handed me a surprisingly heavy black box containing a glass trophy, asked me whether I had someone waiting for me in the reunion area, and sent me on my way. And so I went on my way, almost as if nothing had happened: one more day, one more marathon. That's the irony of it all—life is very much the same, glass trophy or not. There will be a new PR to chase soon enough.

2017 Portland Marathon Race Results

Race Length	Finishing Time	Average Pace	Overall Place	Gender Place	Age Group Place (F 30-34)
26.2 mi	2:50:25	6:30/mile	14 / 2,927	1 / 1,460	1 / 234