Eat Sleep Run

Our trip to Portland was awesome! Full of very little sight seeing and much eating* and nap taking. My kind of vacation. I also happened to bump into a sorority sister I haven't seen since college. It was a quasi planned bump. Soon after I posted my traveling plans Katie informed me that she not only lives in Portland but also happened to be signed up for the Pints to Pasta 10K. CRAZY!!!

So we caught up after the race over a cup of Ruby at the McMenamins Edgefield Brewery. That's right. We did the Pints to Pasta and then back to Pints race.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Race day started way too early as usual. We were out the door and headed to the bus stop (via Starbucks) by 6:00 am. I don't typically eat before runs and my nerves weren't interested in starting. But I've struggled some with fueling in the past and decided to force down some oatmeal anyway.

I caught one of the first shuttles to the start and had almost an hour to sit around and wait. This was good and bad. On one hand it was a tad lonely. On the other hand it gave me time to stretch and go to the bathroom twice.

The line took 20 minutes the second time through and managed to double in length while I waited. This line, in and of itself, was okay. Runners, after all, can't seem to get enough of the Port-O-Potties. What didn't work was putting half the Port-O-Potties right next to the start line. This meant that half the crowd was headed the wrong direction when the gun went off. Once I made my way through the peeers** the rest of the run was pretty uneventful.

Pints to Pasta brags that it was voted Best 10K in the Northwest for the past 6 years. Well, I can tell you why. The first mile to mile and half are downhill and the rest of it is flat. If you checked out my Personal Bests section you already know this translated to a 55:36 finish time. A few solid minutes less than my old PR and goal time of 59:00. I even felt GOOD at the end. Check it out (in the race photo I didn't purchase).

Truthfully, the course was so easy I kind of feel like I cheated. Thanks to the opening downhill I finished the first 3 miles in 26:16. I can't actually run that fast. But a few minutes of math geekery tells me I still would have finished under 57:00 if I ran the whole thing at the mile 4 to 6.2 pace. So I'm feeling pretty freakin' good about it.

Now time to work on that stubborn 5K time...

*In summary:

Park Kitchen - Nice vibe, disappointing service and food that's trying a bit too hard.

Nel Centro - Perhaps the best Italian I've had.

Cool Moon Ice Cream - Awesome. Particularly the chocolate orange sorbet.

**Yes. Peeers. As in "those who pee."