Race Report: Blue Lake 15K
About three years ago I ran my first 15K, at Lake Merritt in Oakland: three loops around the lake, in 1:06:02. It was great fun, but I hadn't done the distance since then, mainly because there aren't a lot of 15Ks offered. More's the pity. It's a fine distance, a substantial run but not so long it wrecks the body.

So a few days ago I wandered onto the Oregon Road Runners Club site and saw a listing for the 33rd Annual Blue Lake Runs. I was jazzed. Not only was a 15K the marquee event, but Blue Lake is in Troutdale, an easy 20-minute drive from my home. And the race started at 11 a.m. No early wakeup call!

Race day today dawned drippy and dreary, par for the course this fall: our rainy season began about a month ago, and we've had rain 17 out of the past 23 days. The little twist to the weather today was the chill in the air. Highs had been around 60 most of October, but today the race-time temp was 48. I'd checked the radar before leaving home and it looked like we might get a break in the rain, but it was hard to tell. The skies spit on and off through registration and warm-up, then just before the start, lightened a bit. I took my rain jacket back to the car, leaving me with a long-sleeve technical shirt and shorts (no tights for me, baby).

I really didn't know what to expect. Pretty much all year—certainly since the Pacific Crest half-iron triathlon in June—I've been staying active, but not really "training." That means four runs a week, give or take, usually between five and eight miles, mixing in hills and flats. Plus, for the past several weeks I've been logging 60- to 90-minute stints on the bike trainer three or four times a week. What all this would add up to as far as racing goes, who knew? The course was advertised as flat, so I figured there was no risk in trying to run it at something near my previous 15K pace, just over seven minutes a mile. And if that proved too much, well, I'd make it home one way or another.

Off we went, beginning with a little half-mile out-and-back in Blue Lake Park. Never saw the lake, but the trees, even in the gray and wet, were beautiful shades of fall yellow and red. We exited and wound our way eastward to a bike path alongside Marine Blvd., which runs along the Columbia River. The Mile 1 marker came at .93 on my Garmin. When it measured a mile, I was at 6:41. I felt good, comfortable, but I knew I couldn't keep that up. Mile 2 offered a few puddles to dodge, a little rain and gusts of winds to endure, but I clicked off a 6:53. The Garmin and the mile markers were coming into sync.

As advertised, the course was flat, with no real "climbs," just a couple of mild, sparsely spaced rises that did no damage. After about three miles, we did a u-turn on Marine, and then turned north toward the Portland-Troutdale Airport. At 4.7 miles, we turned around and retraced our steps back to the start.



As I ran, I thought a lot about my pace. At Mile 5, I was still under the 7-minute per mile pace, around 6:58. I assumed the next few miles would do me in. We were turning back into the wind, which was gusting up to around 20 mph, according to the nearby weather station (I checked online afterward). And the rain began to pelt down hard for a little while. Indeed, Mile 6 was my slowest (7:18) and I lost more time on Miles 7 and 8, both 7:04s. My pace was now around 7:03. But I felt great! A younger woman had passed me after three or four miles, but now I was closing in on her. Well, maybe she was coming back, but either way, it's inspiring to pass someone. Now I consciously picked up the pace, though, I must confess, I didn't kill myself. I didn't suffer deeply. I just ran hard.

Turning back into the park, I passed the guy in the orange shirt who had been up ahead for the whole race. He said something that sounded convivial, although I didn't make out the words. I told him I was gunning for a seven-minute pace. "You'll have to hurry a little bit," he said. But soon thereafter the Mile 9 marker came up: a 6:40 mile had put me through at 1 hour, 3 minutes—smack dab on pace. I knew I had it in the bag then.

I gave, oh, probably 96.7 percent effort over that last 3/10ths, running it in a minute 48, a 6:13 pace. As I walked through the finishing chute I noted that it took me just a few steps to catch my breath. I should have gone harder!

Here's the Garmin data I studied as I squished over the soggy grass, heading toward the covered picnic tables for the post-race hoo-haw:

Mile 1...6:41
Mile 2...6:53
Mile 3...7:02
Mile 4...7:01
Mile 5...7:12
Mile 6...7:18
Mile 7...7:04
Mile 8...7:04
Mile 9...6:40
Last 0.3..1:48 (6:13 pace)
Total time: 1:04:48
Distance: 9.29 miles
Pace: 6:58/mile

I felt super, and wished it had been a half-marathon. I wanted another few miles! But food and drink sounded good, too, and the ORRC broke the mold with hot dogs. On a chilly rainy day, after a hard run, right around lunchtime? Hit. The. Spot.

This was a PR by about a minute 14, or eight seconds per mile. That's pretty satisfying because, maybe you didn't realize this, I'm older than I used to be. I was just shy of 42 when I ran that earlier 15K. Now, on 45's doorstep, I was able give that time a pretty good whupping.

OK, so it's not like I'm crazy fast or anything. But I get a charge out of the fact I'm getting faster in my 40s. And I have a theory as to why: I've continued to work out regularly, which has given me a rock-solid foundation of fitness—but I've avoided overtraining. It's a weird thing: when you make fitness a regular part of your life and enjoy measuring your fitness in races, it can be easy to fall into the overtraining trap. There's a constant nagging impulse to do more. A one-workout day? Barely enough to keep slackerdom at bay. Or so it seems. But the truth is, these stretches of moderation—interrupted occasionally by more intensity—are probably what have kept me fresh and injury-free. That and a lot of good fortune.

Still having fun...

The Data Don't Lie
I've lived in Portland for 123 days—three months of summer, one month of fall—and on 30 of those days there's been measurable precipitation. The most rain we've had in a single day is .65 inches. On 15 days—half of our "rainy" days—the bucket has delivered more than a tenth of an inch.

In the same period, my old hometown, Napa, has had nine days with measurable percipitation, totaling 1.58 inches. Maximum single day rainfall: .62 inches, with four of the days showing more than .10.

Conclusion: They were right; Portland is rainy.

They Noticed Us!
You know you live in a wannabe city when the jabs of a national commentator make the front page of the local daily. Follow the bouncing ball...

This:



Led to this:

Stephen Colbert, you're on notice
Nailed you - Sure, call us "communists," but you need our creative collective to publish your comic book

Friday, October 12, 2007
KRISTI TURNQUIST
The Oregonian Staff

Memo to: Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" Topic: What Have You Got Against Portland, Anyway?

Dear Stephen,

Hey, we know your persona on "The Colbert Report" spoofs such blustery cable TV talk-show hosts as Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews. We get it. It's funny. Kinda.

And look, we laughed right along when you interviewed Rep. Earl Blumenauer on your show and said the congressman's "obsession" with bicycling "borders on the interesting." We chuckled when you grilled Rep. Darlene Hooley about Oregon's medical marijuana laws, asking her, "Are you high right now?"

...

Followed by this:

Grin and Colbert It: The furor over Stephen Colbert's attempt to extort Powell's Books for "eight buck cash money" has garnered considerable press coverage in, well, Portland.
Local station KATU managed to pinch out a whole feature on the conflict. Hey, Colbert's jokes are ten times funnier when repeated by Portland news anchors.

The Oregonian put Colbert "on notice" for calling the entire city "communists." (Memo to the big O: you're a little late to that party.)

And here's "a husband, dad, small business owner, drummer, and former newspaper reporter" who used his blog to spin his own campaign against the Oregonian for calling Colbert a "fake news guy."

There hasn't been this much excitement in Portland since last week, when a bike messenger posted to Indy Media that he spotted Jerry Garcia alive and well downtown, and the message boards erupted with links to bootlegs of everyone's favorite thirty-minute guitar riffs from Grateful Dead live shows.

April 21, 2008
There will be a race in Boston that day. I am in:
Danko, Pete 45 M Portland OR USA

Stumbling the Gantlet
Running between a couple of lines of thugs beating on you with clubs or switches can be difficult. So can spelling a tricky word consistently all the way through an entire sentence. And when the word is a tester like gantlet—or is it gauntlet?—well, then you've got real trouble.

Today, therefore, seemed like a good moment to run the gantlet of the Sunday shows—a gauntlet that can be withering, and where Mrs. Clinton knew she would face strict scrutiny of her sharply changed positions on Iraq.

I've often paused, while tapping away brilliantly at the keyboard, to ask myself if it was the gantlet or the gauntlet that I intended. But even when uncertain, I've made my choice and stuck with it. No sharply changed positions on the spelling of the word, not for me!

So, yo, New York Times, the reason Hillary is running the gantlet is that several months ago she threw down the gauntlet and challenged Edwards, Richardson and the rest for the presidential nomination.

Pierogies in Portland
Pierogies and holubtsi and dancing girls in native garb, all at the Ukrainian Festival in Sellwood...

Generational Lament
Received this morning: "J has been going downtown since Wednesday. He got a summons for jury duty. He thinks they will have a full jury today and he will be released. He has sat on six juries and enjoys doing it. I asked him if he met any interesting people. When they have breaks they all are attached to a phone or other type of gaget. No talking to each other, like it used to be. What would these people do with out their phones? The world sure has changed."

'You be good. See you tomorrow. I love you.'
Last words of a very smart African gray parrot, who died late last week at 31.

Today's Run

Hometown Race
My assessment of the Oregon Trout City of Portland Triathlon is swayed considerably by the fact that I was able to drive to the start in 10 minutes and park maybe 50 yards from T1/2 and the finish. How cool is that? The contrast with, say, Vineman, with its far-flung transitions, mile-away parking, and dismal school-bus shuttles had me wiping tears from my eyes.

Or maybe that was just muck from the Willamette.

Yes, we swam in Oregon's superfund toilet of a river.


It wasn't bad, actually. Well, my swim was bad, but conditions weren't. Under water you couldn’t see past your fingers, but that was as anticipated. It was long—literally long, I think, maybe closer to 1.0 miles than 0.9, although that hardly explains my pathetic time. That was a product of my generally weak form, and also the strange neck/shoulder/arm ailment that befell me soon after the Pacific Crest half back in late-June. Speaking to the latter point, I just haven't been able to swim much and, being a mediocre swimmer at best, had totally lost my edge. Instead of swimming my usual three or four days a week, I've been in the pool maybe a half-dozen or so times in the past nine weeks. Not good. And when I do swim, I have almost no strength to pull with my left stroke.

OK, so my swim was 37:48, 111th out of the 137 dudes who started the race. I was just happy to have it out of the way.

I then had my typical stupendously slow transition, despite the fact that I got my wetsuit off much quicker than usual. How'd I accomplish that? I cut it off! That's right, I used a pair of scissors and sliced right down each leg and just stepped out. This wasn't as crazy as it sounds, actually, as the suit, after six years of use, had recently suffered several tears and was landfill-bound. Oops, I mean recycling center-bound (this was a "sustainable" triathlon, after all). I almost bought a new one before the race but thought it would be fun to usher out the old one in dramatic fashion. It was a first-generation Zoot two-piece and a gold-medal winning gymnast didn't have the flexibility to wiggle out of that bottom piece with ease. Still, the thing did carry me through dozens of races, including several in frigid waters. I think of Millerton on the edge of the Sierra in April, and Wickiup in the Cascades at Pacific Crest—pretty chilly stuff.

Onto the bike. Riding my old (2001) Lemond roadie among all the sleek, super-light tri bikes is getting ridiculous. I'm springing for a new bike soon, very soon. A tri bike. That's right, aero bars and everything. So this might have been it for the bike, too, though I did not cut it up or even crash it to celebrate the occasion. I just rode it. Not particularly quickly, but on an odd, straight-line, six-lap course, my bike was better than my swim. Up the river parkway for two miles, a U-turn, back down it for two miles, a U-turn, again and again.

One way was into the wind and up a slight grade, the other way—that's right: with the wind and down a slight grade (funny how that worked out). Highlight of the race came on lap six when I saw racer 510 weaving between people on his passes. Passing on the right is against the rules—and it's a good rule, a safety thing, limiting just a bit the possibility of mishap amid riders of varying abilities, fitness levels and powers of concentration. A decently marshaled race would have resulted in a penalty for racer 510—one Luke Reyes, of Portland—but all it earned him today was a gentle (I swear) few words from me when he passed me on the right: "Hey, bud, you gotta pass on the left, not the right." The classy Mr. Reyes flipped me the bird, good and long, without looking back.

Well, I kicked his ass on the run—48:18 vs. 1:00:46—despite the fact he was half my age.

The run course was excellent, over the Hawthorne to the east side of the river, north up the Esplanade, back to the west side on the Steel, then south to where we started. Do this 3.1-mile loop twice and there's your 10K, triathlon fans.

Mile 6 on the run was my best and fastest, coming in around 6:50 as a little peroneal tendonitis in my right leg finally loosened up. Always nice to finish strong and, moreover, always nice to finish.

Crowds were super—more fans than racers (300+), I think. Weather was perfect, calm for the swim, keeping the river smooth, and then sunny and comfortable, in the 60s heading into the 70s by the mid-morning finish.

To Jeff Henderson, who brought this inaugural triathlon to downtown Portland, a big thank you. It was a very well run event. Strictly on organizational terms, one of the best I've ever been involved in. And I'm not just saying that because of the killer parking spot I got.

The final data:
Swim---37:48---111/137
T1---5:14---114/137
Bike---1:23:51---85/137
T2---1:19---74/137
Run---48:18---48/137
Overall---2:56:32---90/137

PS: Oregon Trout, the title sponsor of today's race, is a great organization!