UPDATES AND PACING A HALF MARATHON

So, I finally have my target marathon for this fall. After trying for Chicago and New York, and failing, I figured I would wait to see what the new organizers of the Portland Marathon would come up with. By the time May Day rolled around there was still no announcement and I was getting a little antsy, but BAM, May 2nd the new race was announced!

It will be put on by Brooksee (they put on the "Revel" series of downhill marathons), which we knew. What we didn't know was the course and whether the City of Portland was actually going to play ball to get a first class event up and running. Thankfully, the new course looks GREAT and it appears Brooksee will take over the historic "Portland Marathon" name. I've heard great things about the Revel series, so I'm sure they'll do a fantastic job with the Portland Marathon. So I'm excited! It will remain on the traditional first Sunday of October.

New Portland Marathon course!

They were having a deal so I already signed up. $105 for the full, not bad. Unfortunately, that means I'm going to have to start officially marathon training soon. I'll need to mock up and plan and this time around I'm going to include speedwork. As usual, I'll run four times a week... two easy runs, one speed run, and then the long run. My main focus will just to be faster than last year (3:55), so I'll be working toward that this summer. Hard to believe I'll be facing twenty mile runs in the heat here soon. Oh well, bring it on.

Lately I have been really good about getting my runs in. As predicted, the turn in weather made it a lot easier to motivate myself to get out there. So I've been pretty good about the three weekday runs and then the long run on the weekend. Since I'm already in that routine, marathon training will just be increasing the mileage and getting a speed run in. Easy enough. For my long runs, I've basically only been doing ten miles, which seems like the right distance to (sort of?) stay in half shape. Which brings me to...

I'll be pacing the Hippie Chick Half Marathon tomorrow. This is a woman-centric event that I actually volunteered at with Libbie many years back as a flagger. This time, I have been recruited as a pacer though. They were trying to get me to do a faster pace time but I basically said I'll volunteer if I can do 10:00 or slower. I mean, I could probably pace 9:00/mile, but my actual half marathon time wouldn't be much faster than that. Plus, I'm trained for ten, not thirteen, and while I know I can do thirteen, the question of whether I could be consistent and not slow down toward the end isn't something I wanted to find out.

Anyways, I'm confident I can provide a solid, consistent pace at 10:00/mile so that's what I'll be doing! That's around what I do my long runs at, so the pace should be very familiar. The course is really flat and I'm good at "locking" into a pace, so I'm hoping I'll be a pacer that people will appreciate and not one that is all over the map! Looking at the results from last year, about 500 people ran it and about 10 would have been in my "area." So I won't likely be leading a large group. Luckily, I also have a fellow pacer, so it's not all on me, and many of the other pacers are male, so it won't be too awkward. Let's hope!