Portland Marathon 2008

After a week of feeling under the weather, I elected to ignore the Dr. and head to Portland anyway. Beautiful city, but definitely felt like an early night after the long drive and comatose inducing (but most excellent!) pasta from Ristorante Roma, which was fortunately jut a few blocks from the hotel. Woke early and joined the crush for the start, and at 7am we were off.
Highlights for me:

• Inspiring to see the wheelchair racers.
• Managed just over a 2hr half-marathon time, despite the weather which started raining.
• Saw Dave on the back-stretch around the mile 8/10 mark - hope you had a good run Dave!
• The bad weather meant that the awe inspiring view of St. Johns Bridge, and the long haul uphill to see it was pretty masked - probably a good thing!
• My pace slowed down a lot in the second half, but I managed to keep going the entire way, despite the best attempts of runners who real need turn signals and brake lights, and the muppets who decided that handing out beer was a good idea. Any other time guys...
• Great to run to music!

Not super happy with the 4:25 finish time, but given how under the weather I was feeling in the run up, it's all good.

Special thanks to Mr. Mercury, Mr. Van Halen, Mr. Jagger and many others who provided inspiration along the way.