Chris - 6.2

Pints to Pasta 10k race

I haven't been running very much since Hood to Coast, so I didn't have high expectations for this race. I also had a great time at the wedding and reception last night, which included dancing, 4-5 beers and about 5 hours of sleep. Jeeni and I met Patrick at work at about 6am to drive to the Old Spaghetti Factory downtown, which is where the finish was and where the buses were taking people across the Willamette River to the Adidas headquarters next to the start. We got to the start about an hour before the race was scheduled to begin, so we walked over to the turf soccer field to sit down and relax for a bit. I had a bunch of water in the morning to try and hydrate more after drinking, so I ended up going to the bathroom 3 times before the race began.

I stood way back with Pat and Jeeni, so it took me about 2 minutes to reach the start line. The first mile is almost all downhill, so I figured I'd run that pretty quick. Here's a map of the course. When I ran this 10k 2 years ago and set my PR, I think I ran the first mile in 5:54 - I ran it in 6:38 this year. So after that I decided for sure to just enjoy the race and do my best. About a half mile after that my stomach knotted up and I got a pretty good sideache. That slowly subsided thankfully and I was able to concentrate on picking people off one by one. I passed a ton of people in the first mile, and continued to pass people as the race went on just because I had started so far back. That was kind of neat, I might do that again on purpose for my next race that has a large attendance. Before the race had started, we saw this Asian guy in a white tech tee with BRIGHT pink shorts and matching high socks. I mercifully passed him around mile 3 so I could keep my pride. Then I found another guy that had on gray ankle socks and was wearing a button up short sleeve shirt, and had his keys jangling in his pocket. I took great joy in passing him as well. Around mile 4 a volunteer was pointing people to turn left to go toward the waterfront, and I noticed right away that he was wearing blue nitrile gloves. What for you ask? Who the hell knows? Maybe he was scheduled to perform an enema right after the race, or inspect some elephant dung. At any rate, right before I passed him I said "nice gloves". I'm pretty witty you know. Miles 4 and 5 were a bit rough, the little energy I had to begin with was starting to subside...I had to switch to heel to toe a couple times to give my legs a little rest from my normal stride. With about a mile and a half left my stomach reared up again and I was wondering if I was going to need to throw up. I had to slow way down, and considered walking just to avoid that embarrassment, but thankfully it started feeling better after a half mile. Toward the end I passed a lady running in those barefoot running toe shoe/sock things...pretty impressive. For the last .2 I was able to loosen up a bit and stride out and catch a couple more people before the finish line for a final time of 45:38. I have to point out that this was the first race EVER that the final time was the exact same as the time I had on my watch.

After I finished I went to go grab some water and sip on that while I cooled down and waited for Patrick and Jeeni. While I was standing there, I happened to see non other than Some Running's own Zack walking toward me! So I called over to him and we chatted for a bit, it was good to see him and chit chat. He eventually headed off to find his gf Erin, who also ran in the race. Jeeni came through at 57:24, and Pat at 57:50. It was his first ever 10k, and he accomplished every goal he wanted to hit: run it in under an hour, not walk at all, and finish in the top half. We went to get our free beer and food (minus a beer for Jeeni) and then headed out.

Completely unrelated to this - I heard this song for the first time during H2C and think it's awesome. I know all of you don't listen to music like this (i.e. rap or Eminem) but give it at least one run through. The guy is pretty talented! Also while I'm writing I should tell ya that Jeeni hasn't posted yet because her old laptop died, and she's the assistant coach for Century High School's volleyball team. Her older sister is the head coach, and they recently started their league games. So sadly she hasn't had a ton of free time to run or post about her runs. Maybe once she finally posts Luke can write one of his witty bios for her, haha.