My second Portland Marathon is in 5 weeks, and this time I am determined to 1) not feel like crap in the last 6 miles and 2) finally break 4 hours. The fact I have not yet cracked 4 hours, given that I've run 3 marathons, is a bit of an embarrassment. I mean, over 4 hours in the first marathon is understandable. But the next two? Time to pick up the pace!
Part of the problem is that I've been concentrating on long slow distance running (which gets you to the finish line) rather than speed work (which gets you there faster). To help me reach this goal, I pick up a book called '4 months to a 4 hour marathon' and am religiously following it. The training alternates speed work with the long slow distance runs. For the speedy stuff, I take me and two unwilling kids once a week to a nearby track. Usually we go to Alanna's middle school to run, however if someone is on that track, and there is the slightest possibility that the someone we see might be someone Alanna knows, or someone that attends her middle school, then that track is instantly radioactive and we have to find another place to run. Because of this aversion to being seen running, we have done the grand tour this summer of all the tracks in Bend (there are seven and each has a unique characteristic: Cascade Community College has the spongiest surface, Bend High the hardest surface, Mt View High is the most dilapidated, High Desert Middle has the best view of the city dump, Cascade Middle has the most politically correct runners who shoot you dirty looks for letting your dog poop or your kid write in charcoal on the side of a shack, Summit High is the one that most seems like a set from a movie called 'At Play in the Fields of the Lord', and Juniper Middle is the most claustrophobic).
Once we finally arrive at a suitable track, the fun begins. There are plenty of complaints from all three of us. Running is not the best of times, and running fast might be the worst of times. It hurts. But we feel good when it is over.
But today I did another type of training run, a long slow distance one from Bend to Sunriver. This is twenty three miles and is the second longest run before Portland. It is a one way run, with my wife picking me up in Sunriver. A real treat being picked up and not having to do the out-and-back routine.
I set out from home. Despite the calendar's contention that it is still August, the nip and chill of fall is in the air. Clouds scud low across sky, whipped by a Pacific breeze. I follow my regular route along the canal trail to Meadows camp, six miles away, regulating my pace so to not leave my Marathon 'out on the trail'.
From Meadows I follow the Deschutes River trail, which winds 9 miles up-river to Benham Falls. It is a lovely day, and absolutely wonderful to not be at work. On a good run the world opens up and becomes filled with a sense of the possible. Right now is a good time to have that feeling as it pushes back against the ever-present burdens: work, children, family, mortgage, money. I see several solitary men along the riverbank, basking in the sunlight, seemingly no trouble in their minds. I have been there though, and a wonderfully apt Steve Earle song floats through my mind: "I ain't never satisfied!". The time of my utmost freedom from responsibility (Australia, riding me pushbike up and down the coast for months on end) were also some of my darkest times. Man is not meant to live without some sort of yoke strapped to him.
The sun is playing hide and seek through the clouds, alternating the heat of an August afternoon with the chilly shadows reminiscent of October. The fluorescent green stalks of the cat-tails contrast nicely with their thick brown tops. The breeze is delicious, shooing away the late season mosquitoes. The trail periodically opens up onto fields of grass and wildflowers. Bikers pass me, groups of two and threes. A solitary man on a bike approaches in the distance, bellowing out 'Sarah!' across the fields, his sound swallowed up at the edge by the dark woods. He awkwardly downshifts past a log blocking the trail, and asks me if I saw a woman on a bike? Somewhat heavyset Asian woman? I nod yes and say I saw her pass ten minutes ago. Relief fills his face as he thanks me and pushes off after her.
I'm past the Aspen trailhead, maybe thirteen miles or so, and am now on a section of trail I have not been before. Mountain bikes are not welcome on this narrow, rocky, root-riddled section. The trail clings to the riverbank, hemmed in between the rushing water and a steep rock wall. It is a tunnel-like nave of tree limbs and branches, closed in. I am running through a cathedral that is holy and sacred.
I'm nearing the end of the Deschutes River trail, and there is a path ascending to the lookout over Benham Falls. I've gone sixteen miles and getting tired. A crowd of tourists await near the top, marveling at the gushing water shooting over the lava rocks. A thick mist of spray plays over their heads. I run past them, sweaty and determined, righteous in my workout. After another mile a wooden bridge is splayed out across the river, thick with fly fisherman, the river below choked with weeds and water-plants. On the other side of the bridge is the parking lot and a sign post informing me that it is two point seven miles to Sunriver.
The trail to Sunriver is dusty and curvy, meant to appeal to the vacationing families who bike down to Benham Falls. Towards the end of the trail I check my watch and see three hours thirty minutes have elapsed since I ran out my front door. I am now on the paved Sunriver bike trail, plodding along, big right toe throbbing away, breaking in the new shoes. I near a map and see the entrance to Sunriver, which is where my wife will pick me up, is quite a distance away. Cripes Sunriver is big! I have about four miles to go the way the crow flies, but these biking trails have a lot of twists, turns and circles. I follow my watch closely and when it hits three hours fifty minutes I stop - that is about twenty three miles at a ten minute per mile pace. Good enough for today!
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