Oregon Spring Half Marathon 2017

This year the Oregon Spring Half Marathon was held over Memorial Day weekend and I can't think of a better way to honor and remember the service men that have died for our freedom that to participate in the activity that is the ultimate expression of freedom.

Dennis, Yoshi, Randy and I all headed down to St. Paul, Oregon on Friday.

Pre Race photo op!

We grabbed some dinner at Red Robin after deciding that getting sushi the night before would be a bad idea. You know what a GOOD idea is? Macaroni and Cheese!

Or not...

I got sick and spent the night puking into the toilet. It was awesome...for everyone. I'm sure it was great for everyone else to have the bathroom hogged and to try to fall asleep to the sound of puking.

But I woke up at 6am and ate a careful breakfast of some oatmeal and we all headed to the starting line to pick up our bibs. The race starts at the Heritage Rose Garden in St. Paul OR.

The race started bright and early at 7:30am which at first seemed like an oddly early start time, but due to the upper 80 weather prediction was awesome.

The race does this weird thing where they start the 10k, and half marathon at the same time. Last year they started the 5k at the same time as well, but this year they gave them a head start.:)

Since I wasn't feeling great I decided to take it easy and just run at a pace that felt good. I decided that about a 2 hour half marathon pace would be a good start. I really wasn't sure what was going to happen.

 Randy had signed up for the 10k and since the races started together we were able to run together until the 10k turn around. We fell into our old habits and ended up egging each other on pace inching faster and faster like we did when we trained together.

 

I miss that:)

This is what finish line photos look like now that we all have Garmin (or other brands) watches. Lovely photos of the top of our heads while we time stopping our watch at the exact moment we cross the timing mats. I got a little antsy with the 2 hour pacing group (who finished right on the money!) and sped up the last 4 miles to finish in 1:56:

While I LOVE getting race photos for free, this race seems to just have some random dude standing on a ladder with a point and shoot camera that had trouble trying to meter the light on such a sunny day.

Yoshi ran her very first half marathon!! She did such a great job on a hot day. She and Dennis have been training together and she was running so well that she picked up the pace at mile 4 and finished ahead of him! Randy and I went out on the course about a quarter mile to run her in.

She was so focused and really utilized all her mental training to get her

In case you didn't know it was hot, here is a photo of Dennis when he crossed the finish line. He's wearing one of the ice towels they gave out on course. Those towels were AWESOME. I kept mine as well. Wiping my arms and face during the race really helped me not feel crusty and sunburnt. Plus the water acted like sweat and let the power of evaporation work in my favor but not leave a salty residue.

The course is exactly like they describe it on the Uberthon website. It's flat and fast and the only hill is the one at mile 5 and only last for about 200  meters. Plus, you get to run down it on the return.

GarminConnect Course Link

The volunteers were great and even though many were high school students, they didn't do that weird silent staring thing that sometimes happens. They cheered and were encouraging!

I did pass a lady at mile 7 that was over heating and we weren't going to see a water stop for a  while so I poured some of the water from my hydropack onto her to help cool her off.

Yet another reason to carry your own water;)

After the race all the runners get Qdoba! It sound awful before you run, and honestly right after you finish it doesn't sound that great, but after THAT...it is awesome:)

The medals were pretty impressive as well. The way I put it, is "if you tripped and fell in a puddle while wearing it, you would drown." It's impressive.