| Map | Elevation Map |
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Leave Friday morning early and head to LGA. Take a flight to Texas with a short layover and get on a different plane to Eugene. Pick up a car and drive it to the hotel since I will be getting in around 1:30. Chill out and get the lay of the land and then head out to the expo to get my stuff and also to see where the start/finish is. Saturday morning, do the Marathon and then immediatly get into the car and drive 2 hours toward Washington. The hotel is actually in Oregon, near PDX, but the next race is in Washington. The Washington Marathon has an option to get the "BEAST Medal". Anyone who completes the Sunset 5K, at 6pm Saturday night and then does the Marathon on Sunday will receive another medal. So, one weekend, 2 states, 3 races or 4 medals. Fly back on Sunday at 11:48pm and get into NYC, Monday at 8:01am. Hm...
Let's see how the weekend actually unfolded.
Friday morning, I woke up early and finished getting my stuff together. Walked the dogs with Elizabeth and ordered an Uber. Drive to LGA was no prob. Security was no prob. Boarded the plane without an issue. We were about to leave the gate when the captain made an annoucement. There is a problem with the navigation system and they are rebooting it. A few minutes later, the reboot worked and they had to reboot the other one. We finally took off but late. Captain said that they will try to take shortcuts and make up time since they were sensitive to peoples connections. Cool.
We landed in Texas but now instead of a 40 minute layover, I have 20 minutes. In fact, we are still on the plane when I got the "your flight is now boarding" message. Awesome.
Captain asked those who do not have connections to make to let those with connections out first. Yeah, right. That's ok... I'm an ultra guy. I got out, hit the restroom and started running. I have to go to another terminal. Yay. I see my gate and there's an Auntie Anne and I'm starving but they are about to board my section. Oh well...I boarded. All's good except that I'm hungry. We close the doors. We depart the gate when we stop. The captain comes on the speaker and tells us that we have a "check engine light" and that we are going back to the gate. Went back to the gate and he promised us an update ASAP. About 20-30 minutes later, he comes on to tell us that he asked for a mechanic but nada and he's talking to ground now to get a mechanic. Some time later, we now have a mechanic and the mechanic promised to give us an update within 30 minutes. WHAT?!? Time later, mechanic is on it and will only take another 15-20 minutes. Another message later told us that all is well and we are leaving. Flight attendants gave us the speech again on how to put on a seatbelt. We leave the gate and another message. Just like yesterday, one check engine light went on and after fixing it, the other engine light on went on. Back to the gate. Mechanic fixed. Takes time. Good news... It's fixed but paperwork will take another 15 minutes. We push off again and once again, we get instructions as to how to put on a seatbelt. Yay - now that they explained to us 3 times, we, in theory, know how to put a seatbelt on. We finally take off, even tho 5 American Airlines, our sister planes, cut us... Whatever. We are in the air.
We spent 2 hours on the tarmac by the way. We finally land in Eugene, Oregon (EUG) and I look for the rental cars. The line to budget is HUGE while Enterprise is empty. Yay. I asked for a full size car, Camry or equivalent, but they didn't have one so they upgraded me to a small SUV. I think I would have preferred a Camry instead of the Ford. I couldn't even figure out how to open the trunk! Embarassing. I wasn't sure whether to go to the hotel first or the expo as we landed 2 hours late but finally decided to check in to the hotel first. Did that and headed to the expo. In the RD email, he gave an address of 241 Smith Street, Harrisburg at the Harrisburg Middle School. Another email said 201 Smith Street. Cutting to the chase, neither address is correct and anyone who does this race, should enter Harrisburg Middle School into Waze or Google Maps.
Whatever... Went there and got my bib and shirt. Went back to the hotel but first stopped at Subway and got a sandwich. I haven't really eaten anything.
The plan was to go to sleep very early Oregon time. It was still early, just not super early. It was 7pm here or 10pm NY time. Wake up was at 2am so I was gonna get 7 hours of sleep or almost 2 days of sleep. Didn't matter. I slept well. Got up and got ready and left to the race in the dark.
Besides the whole address mishap, here is my second and last annoyance. The email said to park at the high school on race day. I got there in the AM and there was a NYer who eventually left NY and moved to the West Coast and she was parking on a side street. I talked to her and the packet people told her that the street she was on, was good to park on except she was next to a yellow curb and so she moved it really quick. I parked too and headed to the port-a-pottie. Before that, I asked for myself and was told to talk to the CO-RD. I asked him and in his defense, perhaps he misunderstood me as to which street I was referring too but he told me that I cannot park there, that it's on the course and I need to move the car immediatly to the gravel field. Ok... I moved the car and went to tell the NYer. I found her and told her but behind her a dude heard and spoke up. He said that that is the church parking lot and we don't have permission but people usually park there. OY! She went to ask the other CO-RD and he said that where we originally parked was ok. I moved the car again. My stomach is in knots and I still didn't take care of it. Went there and of course had to use my phone as it was pitch black inside.
By the way, IT IS FREEZING! But was gonna get warm. I eventually stripped to shorts and my MM race singlet with sleevies and light gloves. Of course, I grabbed the gloves last minute so they didn't even match but who cares...
While we were about to start, I saw a Maniac shirt and decided to say hello and it's Karen Murray and Glen Anderson (Husband/wife). Talked to them and we started.
I ran. Did my own thing but eventually paired up with a guy doing his first with no sense for time but he knew that we were doing a 9 minute pace or a 4 hour time. I let him go around mile 5. Too rich for me. I hooked up with another dude. A teacher who I didn't get his name. Also a first timer. We were a good match but he stopped at a port-a-pottie and I went on slowly with 2 women. He never caught us. I hope he made it. The 2 women, Sarah and Amy, are identical twins and had turned 50 yeards old, the day before the race (Friday). We were a good match and stuck together for the next 18 miles or so...
Good conversations. Good laughs. They used to run track. They graduated college, got married and one had 5 kids while the other had 6. Nice. Really enjoyed meeting them.
We saw some roadkill here and there. Lots of possums whose spine was in pieces. At one place, there was a horrible smell and I spied the dead skunk.
I would like to mention the course here at this time. The teacher dude said that one of the reasons he signed up for this race was because it was supposed to be near the river. Well, they changed the course last year and decided to keep it. It was 13.1 miles out and then you retrace your steps for 13.1 miles. It literally was an out and back course but no river. The course elevation map was not updated and didn't make sense. By the way, I spied a small rainbow a few times which was cool. Welcome to rural America. I did finally find a what seems to be correct elevation map and it's included in this report.
So no loops which was nice. Also, he had an aid station approx every mile for 12 aid stations and most of them had a port-a-pottie which was cool. They were manned by teenagers who were all dressed very spiffy in a tie. The sisters speculated that they were Mormons. I don't know but I did get a kick out of it. In any case, even though the course wasn't beautiful per se, rural roads and all, there was a lot of support on the course which I appreciated. Water and Gatoraide is fine with me.
The sisters shared that they did climb a bunch of 14s (14,000 feet of elevation mountains) which is awesome and told me about one of their adventures. I think it was Sarah's kid, Katie, who had an issue. They thought she had a cyst in her knee which would explain all the issues she had. A cyst in a joint is ALWAYS bad news but apparently it was actually a cancereous tumor and thankfully, they were able to save the leg and the knee through clever manipulations of tendons. I think they said she has no ACL (or a different tendon) but still she was able to climb. They also told me that they saw a blind kid doing the climb as well and he was leading the way for his group. Nice!
By the way, we later saw Katie driving by us taking video and blasting the BeeJees. At one point, she got out and danced and she looked good. I would never be able to guess that she has had cancer and issues stemming from it.
We finished. A quick hug and a quick pee for me and I got a bottle of gatoraide and I was on my way toward the hotel in Oregon near Washington.
Click here to read part 2 of this crazy weekend.
