Pints 2 Pasta

On Sept 7, I got to participate in what has been voted Portland's BEST 10K event. I now know why.

The event is called Pints to Pasta and is a run hosted by "Running with Paula" events. I'm pretty sure I have a link to those from this blog's sidebar. The interesting thing about this event was it was a one-way run... not a loop. The advantage of a one-way run is that you don't have to finish at the same altitude you start at! This particular 10K was all downhill and flat. Only 2 little uphill sections really, and both weren't a big deal at all.

In order to facilitate this run, we had to park at the finish line (The Olde Spaghetti Factory in SW Portland). The event coordinators then shuttled us via a fleet of school buses to NE Portland... or more specifically the Adidas headquarters.

Here is where we caught the school buses outside the Spaghetti Factory.



This is the view of Adidas as you get off the shuttles.



The race didn't step off till like 9am, but the shuttles were running from 7:30am-8:45am... I didn't want to be one of the people squishing into one of the last shuttles, so I showed up to catch my shuttle to the start around 8am. Turned out I was on the second bus!

At the Adidas courtyard I drank some water, and put off checking my polar fleece pullover into the clothing check until the last minute I could... and then one last trip to the porta potties, and then me and my group of friends decided to head to the start line. I had met up with Dayna, Sheryl, and Bryce before the run. Sheryl knew this girl Diane from TNT, and she hung out with us too before the run. We had seen her during Portland to Coast also.

Here was the actual start line for Pints to Pasta 10K.



1889 runners and walkers participated in this event.

The day was a beautiful day... supposedly hitting mid-80s by the time the run was over. My goal for this run was to finish the 10K in 1 hour or less. I opted to wear my new wrap skort and my Portland to Coast technical T shirt for this run.

The start was delayed because we were waiting for one last shuttle to show up. The bus literally drove up to the start line and the passengers walked off the bus into the mass of people waiting to start the race... so the gun didn't go off until like a couple minutes late. We were all anxiously awaiting the moment we could cross the start line.

FINALLY we were allowed to start going, and the group of us moved down the hill along Greeley enmasse. Here is the course map....



A lot of this beginning stretch was where I ended up running with Sheryl during the Portland Marathon in 2007, so I was waxing a little nostalgic. I was having fun going downhill, but I didn't know whether my energy would keep up if I was going too fast... so I was trying to moderate my speed a little. I had figured out ahead of time that a 1 hour 10K would mean roughly a 9:40 minute mile pace... so I was constantly aiming for that pace or faster. Mostly I found myself running at 8:30-9 minute miles to start.

I slowed down a bit to run up onto the Broadway Bridge. This was where the crowd started to thin out a bit. Those people who pushed WAY too hard on the initial downhill start had to walk up the hill. Those of us who attempted to moderate our effort were rewarded by being able to pull ahead of the others.

Over the bridge (beautiful day... I remember admiring the Willamette as I crossed the river) and a loop around and under the bridge to then merge onto the Willamette Westbank Esplanade.

There are always a good number of homeless people who spend the night in the park along the esplanade... they were sitting on park benches wrapped in their blankets all bleary-eyed watching the group of us pound past them. Some of the runners took water breaks at the various permanent bubblers (water fountains) that Portland prominently has available to anyone who is thirsty in the downtown/old town area.

The esplanade is a relatively flat and wide mixed-use pedestrian way. Many of the city festivals take place in the park alongside the esplanade. The esplanade was NOT closed off for our race... so there were numbers of bicyclists and other walkers and runners also using the path... both going with us and against us. I saw a number of people with cameras who looked kinda like event photographers, but when I smiled and waved at them, they pulled their cameras up and watched me run past without even trying to take a snap. huh.

The group of people I found myself running with had thinned out quite a bit too btw.

Just before the Hawthorne Bridge I FINALLY found a photographer who was more than willing to snap my pic tho. :)





We went past the Hawthorne Bridge and found a dragon boat race going on. All sorts of tents and teams in matching Tshirts and PFDs holding oars were watching us run by. Some of them cheered us on, some of them seemed annoyed that we were forced to dodge through their numbers to try to keep going at a good clip.

Then we ran along the riverside area with little shops and restaurants. This path gave way to a NEW riverside park area that was completed in the last year. Then, we went through there to the more sparse area with new condos going in near the base of the OHSU tram. I was beginning to drag right about here. I had to slow down to 10 minute miles or slower, and people were beginning to pass me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was running low on energy. Luckily I had ran most of the race UP til now at more of a 9 minute mile, so I did have a little wiggle room. I kept pushing my pace as much as I dared tho... I knew the end was near, and I was very hopeful to finish in less than an hour.

Finally, after a zig and then a zag, you could see the balloon arch of the finish line infront of you. This was decieving tho... cause you still had a quarter mile to go. I KNEW this too... since I had my garmin. Nonetheless, as soon as I saw that balloon arch I started pushing myself harder... and passed a number of people. Somehow the road here was more crowded than all along the Tom McCall Waterfront Park.... interestingly enough.

My energy didn't hold for that entire quarter mile. I began my final push too early, alas. I had to slow down a bit again to get air in to my lungs... and some of the people (not all of them mind you) who I just passed were easily able to pass me. I crossed the finish line in such a crowd of people, it was simply ridiculous! I never have had to wait to get my timing chip clipped off before! There was simply a crush of bodies in the finish chute, and all of us were waiting in line to get our chips off... it must have taken 2 minutes or more to get out of the chute!

Here I thought I had done pretty good (most certainly a PR for me!).... finished in 57:04. A 9:11 minute mile pace average... but I found the area around the Olde Spaghetti Factory COMPLETELY CROWDED! Look at all these people who were done before me! dang! I went wandering through the crowd for water (why the organizers didn't put water at the finish line, I'll never know. was pretty bad planning tho). I ran into Diane right about then. She was happily drinking a pint of beer already. I asked her what her time was and she told me roughly 45 minutes. WHOAH! I asked her what her PR was for a 10K, and she stopped and said she didn't really know actually. She hadn't thought about it in a while.

However the more she thought about it, the more she realized that this run was a PR for her also! I did some mental math and realized that 45 minutes was DAMN CLOSE to a 7 minute mile pace! That's AMAZING (7:14 minute mile pacE). Not only that, she ended up winning 3rd place in her age group! Pretty sweet!

I found Dayna and Sheryl as they crossed (I was happily sucking down free samples of jamba juice by this time). Both of them had great runs. Dayna finished in 1:03:00, Sheryl in 1:10:05. Both of them were beaming like crazy. We made our way to go get beer and pasta, and found Bryce. He was heading out already. We asked his time and he told us 54 minutes (actually 53:36). I was like, wait! You were 4 minutes infront of me? When did you pass me?? hehehe.

We hung out and ate our food and listened to the band and sat in the sun and relaxed. They had various prize give aways, but we weren't in the right spot to get anything. That was fine with me tho. I was just happy I killed the 1 hour mark.

Finally, as it was approaching 11:30am, I decided I needed to take off. I went home and passed out till like 5pm or so. What a great day!!! :D

My stats were...
Overall Place: 856 out of 1889 (hey look! I'm improving!)
Female Place: 356 out of 1119
Age group Place: 65 out of 212

Last race, I was a middle of the road runner. Looks like I'm slightly ahead of the bell curve now! Neato.