Sunday, May 31, 2009

Beautiful Dog Mountain


Dog Mountain is on the Washington side of the Gorge, upriver from Stevenson. It's a steep and hard hike, with several flatter and shaded areas. And the flowers were fantastic!



Thursday, May 7, 2009

Flying Pig Marathon 2009, part 2


There were so many, many people this year, that I actually started on the sidewalk. We could almost hear the national anthem, and the canon start was a big boom! Those of us on the sidewalk merged into the people flow, and it took me almost 8 minutes to cross the start line!


The marathon was fantastic! The rain held off, and got warmer, and I was noticing the humidity. I know there’s more rain in OR, and that makes humidity, but it isn’t usually that warm and wet in the air. I ran the first part into Kentucky and back to Ohio, then ran/walked 4/1s, then at mile 18, I chose to just power walk and easy running sometimes. I have another marathon scheduled for 4 weeks from Flying Pig, and I didn’t want to overdo it with the humidity, and wanted to have a fun rest-of-the-trip! The medical and course staff were very good about checking on walkers and us back-of-the-packers. We had heard several sirens out there, and each time hoped it wasn’t a runner in trouble!
I carried my camera, and got lots and lots of pics! I met the King and Queen, I met Elvis (he was a lot younger last year), I met the Carrot that led the kids’ race yesterday, I got lots of pics of neighborhoods and signs, and crossing the finish line I got a pic, too. The announcer even noticed!
I got my pic taken by as many pigs as I could fine, both on the course and after the finish line.

After the race, I met up with Tonya, and we both got cleaned up and showered, then went to Luis’ house to meet everyone for the post-race party. It was so fun to meet up with Chris again, and meet her boyfriend. And finally to meet Jenny, one of my running inspirations! And the group pic – I still need some names for some of the people!


We slept really, really well Sunday night. Monday was a zoo day – Cincinnati has a great zoo! Tuesday Tonya got me to the airport at noon – and it was time for lunch then the flight to Salt Lake City, then Portland. And Oregon welcomed me home with real rain!

Oh, yeah, my chip finish time was just over 6 hours even. I’ll take it as a training run for the next marathon!