Portland Rock’n’Roll Recap

Marc and I just did the Portland Rock’n’Roll Marathon on Sunday and it was our first time racing in Portland and racing a Rock’n’Roll race.

We enjoyed meeting new friends while there. I finally got to meet Kayla, another Run Guru for Run This Year. We stayed with her on Saturday night and she was quite the hostess.

Marc and I enjoyed our trip thoroughly and for the most part had great weather. It was rainy on race day. Friday we settled into our hotel after getting our race packet and picking up these cute onesies for the little Bean.

They have “Portland Rock’n’Roll 13.1” on the back. Bean’s first race top. We grabbed some grub at the Cheesecake Factory, because Marc’s never been to one, and then walked around the mall for a bit.

Saturday morning we enjoyed a great pre race shakeout around the hotel, and found a short trail. I loved how green everything was!!

We did more shopping so I could invest in some new bras and dresses for my pregnancy, and enjoyed having no sales tax!! We found Forest Park and hiked around a bit before heading to Kayla’s house for dinner.

It was a great park with amazing trails!! If we had more time in Portland, I definitely would have ran them.

Before we knew it was race morning. We woke up to rain, but at least it wasn’t cold, cold. I woke up with a horrible headache and very nauseous, thank you pregnancy!! I knew it wasn’t going to be my race from the get go. We headed downtown around 6:30 a.m. and had about an hour before the race started to pee and drop our bag.

The rain wouldn’t stop, which wasn’t helping my mood at all. I decided to keep my rain jacket on for the race and not check it. Minutes before the race started the rain stopped. Marc and I both had to pee so bad, but the bathroom lines were too long so we decided we would do it on the course.

We were off, and made it less than a quarter of a mile before we split off to the bathrooms by the gear check which were completely empty. We then continued on. Within a couple of miles, I was already shedding my rain jacket and gave it to my hubby to hold. He looked styling.

The first part of the race was really industrial and not much for sights. There were great bands along the way though. By mile 3 I knew the race was going to be long, and I wasn’t looking forward to the next 10 miles at all. I was becoming quite grumpy too.

Bean was kicking away at my bladder and I had horrible cramps mixed with my piercing headache. I felt slow and weak. We hit the Hawthorne Bridge and ran through some more industrial parts of Portland before our 1.5 mile gradual climb.

Marc told me to smile, otherwise I would have been gritting my teeth.

Mile 1: 7:18 Mile 2: 6:57 Mile 3: 6:57 Mile 4: 7:03 Mile 5: 6:54 

The climb wasn’t too terribly bad, I just wasn’t in the mood to hear “You’re almost to the top” when clearly we weren’t almost to the top. It’s a pet peeve of mine, and when I am grumpy it really get’s under my skin.

My hubby kept saying how much fun he was having and I wanted to slap him!! I was glad he was having fun, but this baby mama wasn’t.

After we reached the top of the climb around mile 8, we went through some cute neighborhoods, and continued going up and down. I wouldn’t call the course hilly (besides the gradual climb), it just had a lot of little ups and downs.

Mile 6: 6:59 Mile 7: 7:05 Mile 8: 7:23 Mile 9: 7:09

I enjoyed Mile 9 of the race the most for some reason. My husband loved to update on how many miles left to go, but I would quickly correct him on the exact mileage!! I never wanted a race to end as much as I did this one.

I felt like we were getting farther and farther from the finish. I knew once we crossed back over the bridge we would be close to the finish. I felt my pace get slower and slower as the miles progressed. The last 3 miles were killer. My Bean was running her/his own race and I thought I was going to throw up from the pain in my head.

I was thankful the rain wasn’t a factor, and it was prefect weather. There always seemed to be a breeze when I needed it most!! Finally we reached the bridge to go back over the river, and turned toward the finish. You could see the finish line and again my husband, said “We are almost there.” I looked at him and very pointedly said “No we aren’t!! We still have .7 miles left!!”

It was the longest finish ever. You could see it, but it seemed we weren’t getting any closer. I had no kick at the end either. I simply just wanted to finish.

Mile 10: 7:05 Mile 11: 7:18 Mile 12: 7:05 Mile 13: 7:06

 

And I looked pissed!!

We finished in 1:34:36, with an average 7:11 per mile pace. It definitely wasn’t a PR (not that I was going for one), but it was better than I felt. 179th out of 7035, 6 out of 271 in my age group, and 28th out of 4532 for females. After our finish we did a .7 cool down to reach 14 miles for our marathon training and walked toward the meeting place to meet Kayla and her husband.

We headed to get some brunch and watched it pour outside. We literally finished before it started raining again. After brunch and showering, Marc and I had to get on the road. We had a 6 hour drive back home. It wasn’t too bad.

We stopped at the Multnomah Falls on our way home to take some pictures and got soaked in the process. It was beautiful and worth it.

Hope you all had a great weekend of racing too!!

Have you ever ran a Rock’n’Roll race? What did you think?