The road to the San Antonio Marathon runs down Springwater Corridor along the Willamette River to Sellwood on Saturday mornings. The trail runs for the most part slightly downhill from downtown Portland to Sellwood, which means there is a slight incline on the way back even before I cut through Ladd’s Addition and build some character up Harrison to SE 37th Avenue. As I stretch out the long run, I return home at about the 14-mile mark for a bathroom break, carb replenishment, and hydration before setting out again through Laurelhurst Park and on to the Laurelhurst neighborhood to tack on a couple of miles. I am pretty wiped out by the finish back in the park at the east end of the pond, but it is a good wiped-out.

The road also runs through some shoes. It is borderline astounding how quickly the miles add up when you are putting in some serious mileage, granting that “serious mileage,” like “speed,” is a relative concept in this context. Last week I downgraded some ASICS GT-2140s from running to daily wear, a newer pair of GT-2140s from Christmas is well past midway through the life cycle, and the relatively new GT-2150s  used only on Saturday runs the past two months have better than a hundred miles on them. Thursday’s mail brought a Tulsa Runner care package with a new toy: ASICS Gel-Kayano® 15s that I immediately road tested with a 5.5 mile run to break them in for yesterday’s 16-miler that left my body a bit beaten up but my feet were smiling, even the runner’s black toenail middle toe of my left foot that I picked up about a week ago.

The Springwater Corridor runs these days are glorious, mornings almost always cool, in the mid to upper 50s when I set out between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. The trail is filled with runners, walkers, and bicyclists, solitary, in pairs, and in larger groups, in a multitude of shapes and sizes and at just about every conceivable performance level. For some it  appears to be something of a chore. Others are all discipline and focus, clearly looking to train hard. Many are pushing themselves to some degree or other, even when not to the extent of those lithe young, and some not so young, women and men who blow by me each weekend, and most seem to be relishing it. It is, as Jacques Derrida once said of deconstruction, in some sense a pleasurable experience.

Earlier in the season on several Saturdays in succession, I spotted an older woman, probably about my age, who rode her bicycle to a spot with a nice view of river and downtown Portland to the northwest. A cart was attached to the bicycle and in the cart was a folding lawn chair. When I ran by, on the way out to Sellwood and coming back, she would be reclined in her chair, reading the paper, and more than likely with a cup of coffee somewhere around. One morning I caught her eye and waved, and she waved back, but she seemed to be not paying too much attention to traffic on the trail, just enjoying her morning. It struck me as a wonderful way to kick off the weekend.

I have not seen the woman in the lawn chair the past few weeks, but other minor encounters added a little spice to the runs. One day while running back home from Sellwood I was passed first by two young women, then a few moments later by a third. A bit farther up the trail I saw the three of them walking together and figured they had completed their workout and were walking back to their car in one of the parking lots near OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). Not a quarter-mile down the trail, here they came pounding past me again. I called out good-naturedly, “So did you guys walk awhile just so you could blow by me again?” We all laughed. One of them said they were running with me, not by me, though clearly not for long. What happened, of course, was that the two faster women had given their friend a chance to catch up and catch her breath instead of leaving her to run alone behind them. That is part of what good running is all about.

I must have gotten off a little earlier than usual last weekend, because I had the trail almost to myself most of the way to Sellwood. A young woman came up on my left somewhere around Oaks Amusement Park and  asked if I was with Portland Fit. She was running with that group but out ahead of the pack and did not know how far down the trail they were supposed to go. When I said no, I was running alone, she asked if I was training for the marathon. I figured she had the Portland Marathon in mind and explained I am taking a crack at San Antonio with my brother in November. How far are you going today? she asked. Fifteen, I said. She was doing thirteen. We ran along together and chatted like that for a few hundred yards before she resumed her pace and ran on ahead.

Yesterday brought no memorable encounters, just the occasional nod or wave of acknowledgment that runners often exchange as they pass one another. I have been going at the training with fair intensity the past three months, intensity being another relative term, to be sure, with long runs of 15 miles the previous two weeks, 14 on three out of four weeks before that (an easy 9-miler on the fourth of those weeks), and prior to that a stretch of 12-mile runs, along with my three shorter runs each week. I will not be breaking any land speed records with a pace in the 9:30–9:50 range, generally toward the 9:30 end when I time myself using the trail mileposts, roughly at miles 4 and 5 of my run going south to Sellwood and miles 9 and 10 coming back. I time those miles to get a sense of my pace and use that to estimate my mileage. On those intervals I play little games with myself, on the one hand willing myself not to run faster than I ordinarily would, because I want an accurate measure of my pace, and on the other conscious of maintaining a steady pace. Speed is not the point, and a good thing given my pace, though I will confess that I do like to think I am not the slowest person on the trail. Still, everyone out there doing it is out there doing it, and that is all that really matters.

Under other circumstances I would have thrown an easy week or two into the past month’s mix, cutting back a long run or bagging one of the shorter weekday runs. I pushed through knowing that I will be easing off some the next two weeks. Wednesday I hope to catch the Oregon Literary Review First Wednesday reading at Blackbird Wine Shop, featuring Elizabeth Archers, Dennis McBride, Charles Deemer, and Nina Lary. Thursday is Red Cross Blood Drive day ,and I figure it advisable to take the day off when I am a pint low. That might be a good afternoon to check out the First Thursday arts fest after work.

On Saturday we have the Market Day Poetry Series at St. Johns Booksellers with Three Men of a Certain Age (Ric Vrana, Rogers Truax, and your oft humbled scribe). I will cut the run short that morning so I will not be wiped out or rushed to get to the reading at noon. The following Saturday I will be in Seattle to read with Sharmagne Leland-St. John at the Green Lake Branch of the Seattle Public Library (see Home page announcements for more info about both readings). I look forward to a short run along the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle but will not push it that day either.

Back in Portland I return to my regular routine on Monday the 16th, celebrate a birthday on the 18th, and crank out 15 or 16 on the 21st. Zut alors, it almost sounds as if I know what I am doing.

Ciao.

:: Aug.01.2010 :: House Red: Running :: No Comments »