Portland Marathon Pacer Recap

This past Sunday, I took part in the Portland Marathon, as an official 4:45 pacer. Let me just say, I had an absolutely amazing time! Here’s the recap of the weekend:

Expo: I worked the Red Lizard Pacer Booth on Saturday afternoon, and actually had a really fun time answering questions from nervous/excited expectant Marathoners. We handed out pace bands, and answered many questions about corrals. Unfortunately, the Portland Marathon had decided to use the entrants “projected finish time” from their registration to assign them to a corral, without actually letting the runners know… So a lot of runners were upset that they were placed in separate corrals from their pacers, based upon a time they input 6-12 months ago…This probably wouldn’t be much of a problem if they would allow people to change corrals, or update their information a few months ago, but we hoped it would all work out the next day anyhow.

Race: We set our alarms for 5:45am, so that would could be dressed (in our “pacer uniforms”: see below picture) and make our way to the Pacer’s Meeting point at our assigned time of 6:15am. When I had looked outside while getting dressed, I didn’t see any rain, but dressed for the elements, anyway. When we finally made our way out the door, it was pouring, so we quickly headed back inside to grab some trash bags, as we knew we would be standing in the rain for awhile before the race actually started. When we stepped out the door for the second time, we noticed that it was 6:15, and we were late, so we ran the few blocks to our meeting site. We collected our “Lizard Pace Sign” and made sure we were ready to go. Soon enough, it was time to head to our assigned corral.

We both decided that we needed to use the portas, but the line was already a block long. We started by lining up in the line, but after the 5th person approached us and asked about being paced, we decided it would be best to try and cut the line, then line up appropriately for our pace group to meet us. Some nice girls understood, and let us sneak ahead, and soon enough we found our waiting place. Several runners approached us and said they wanted to run with us, but that they wanted to wait under cover, to avoid the large amount of moisture that was falling upon us. “No problem!”, we said. Eventually, we distantly heard the national anthem, and knew it would be time to take off soon.

Did I mention that it was absolutely pouring?! Because it was, and we were already soaked before we even started…

Eventually, we were directed toward the starting line. Garbage bags were strewn all across the road, and you had to be careful not to trip over them. (It doesn’t hurt to walk them over to the side, people!) One thing I didn’t like about the march to the starting line, was when we passed by the “fat lady” sign that said, “It’s almost over!” It later leads you to the finish line, but, really, we hadn’t even started yet!
That’s just mean… :(

Finally, we reached the starting line, I clicked “start” on my watch, and off we went! There is always great energy at the start of the race, and even though I wasn’t racing myself, I was still very excited. One of my favorite early moments was as we passed a Large Drum band (Portland Taiko). The sound they created was very dramatic, and definitely added to excitement of the first mile!

Even though we started in “waves” the first few miles were a definite challenge from a “pacer” standpoint. There were a lot of people in front of us, and we just hoped they were on pace. The first few miles we were actually a bit fast, and we continued to add a little bit to our “bank”  until about Mile 5. This is when we started on the most scenic, the most awesomest, and just plain spectacular (sense any sarcasm, because these sentiments are layered with it…) out and back of all time. OMG. It definitely does not shine a great light upon Portland…

Anyway. These miles dragged on a bit. There were some nice bands, but it was pretty darn boring. One cool thing was that we were able to see a bunch of people going the opposite direction, including a lot of the other pace groups. Something I noticed was that this section became very overcrowded, especially during the aid stations. Not sure if this was because of the half-marathoners mixed in with the marathoners, or what? But it could become a bit of a mad house, what with people cutting across you trying to get to the water or other aid. Oh, and another awesome thing about this section: PUDDLES!!!! As if the pouring rain wasn’t enough, this road has pretty poor upkeep, and collected a lot of water in spots. We had no hope of keeping our tootsies even remotely dry…

 

Soon enough, we were done with this section, and we definitely cheered verbosely! And then before we knew it, we were at Mile 11. Only 3 to go before pacing buddy and I could put on some warm clothes and head over to the Mile 24 aid station! At Mile 12, the two pacers taking over for the second half joined in. We introduced them to our group, went over timing logistics, and settled in to the pace. They were happy that we had banked a little extra time, as the dreaded “Hill” (St. John’s Bridge) was still up ahead.

Mile 14 came and we hopped out and yelled some final support to our pacees, and told them we would see them again at Mile 24!

Wearing dry clothes never felt so good!! And warmI  Ahhhhh…..Soon enough, we made our way to the Aid Station, and passed out Gummy Bears and Pretzels. And shivered. Brrr…it was cold. We kept our eyes out for all the pace groups coming through: 3:50, 4:00, 4:15, 4:30. Time to make sure we were run ready. A few more minutes, and we spotted our Lizard. (He was the one with flair!) We jumped in and looked around at a few familiar faces, although I guess a few had been lost after the bridge. Before we knew it, it was one last climb up onto the Broadway Bridge. This was a tough climb for all these marathoners. At this point, their legs were toast, so we gave as much encouragement as we could, and grabbed any stragglers we passed.

The Mile 25 marker passed, finally, and you could see everyone struggling, but you knew they were going to make it! They were going to be able to call themselves “Marathoners”! The final chute involved a right turn, followed by a left turn (which I think threw a few people off mentally). When we made the first turn, we told our group to take off and finish strong, and boy did they. We were all alone at this point, but there were some people a few yards behind us, so we yelled for them to pass us! When we finally crossed over the finish line (at 4:45:00 on the dot!) pacer buddy and I turned around to cheer in a few people behind us.

Eventually, we went back to the finish and got our space blankets, although the rain had finally stopped! This was apparently the wettest Portland Marathon in history (probably). It was a little emotional at the start line, and why not, a lot of these people finished their first marathon, and finally finished what they had been training so long for!

So, to sum it up, I can’t wait to do this again! It was a very rewarding experience, and it was so much fun to be a part of something so big for all these runners!

Now I didn’t bring my camera, because, in case you didn’t catch it, it was pouring!! So I borrowed some pictures from my friend! :)