11 Miles

1:39:00

Next update: the halfway mark!

8.5 Miles

1:16:00

Ben says, "Looking great."

6 Miles

53:20

Benjamin would also like to wish his nephew Lucas, his cousin Hunter, and his niece Lily a Happy Birthday!

4 Miles

36:00

2 Miles

19:00

Good Morning!

Just talked with Benjamin. He's about ten minutes from the start of the race and feeling good. I'll post his time in a couple miles!

A Pre-Race Test

Hello there Blog Readers! Just wanted to make sure there were no glitches with posting before the big race actually happened! I'll be sitting by my cell phone and computer waiting for Ben's updates!

Good Luck Ben!
Love,
Holly, Andrew, Ella & Lily

Portland Real-Time Updates

Four days from now, I'll be running the Portland Marathon. While on the course, I'll have a cell phone with me. My sister-in-law, Holly, has volunteered to post "real-time" updates here during the race, so I'll be calling her every 2 miles or so with my split times. Thanks, Holly! Feel free to post encouraging comments while I'm on course. There's a chance that Holly will notice them and tell me about them before I finish the race.

The race begins on Sunday at 7:00 a.m. Pacific time. I'm hoping to beat my previous personal best of 4:00:03, which means that I'll need to average about 9:09 per mile or better. Wish me luck! :)

Let the tapering begin!

This week is the start of my 3-week tapering period before the big race. I finished the last of three 20-milers on Sunday. I'll summarize my performance in these runs:

20-miler #1 (August 13): Average 9:53 / mile
20-miler #2 (August 27): Average 9:46 / mile
20-miler #3 (September 10): Average 9:22 / mile

When I run the marathon, I'm targeting 9:00 / mile, so these training runs are right where they should be. Until October 1, I'll keep following the training plan, and I think I will reach the starting line confident and ready to fly!

Training for Portland

I apologize for the lack of updates over the past few weeks. I'm happy to report that training for the Portland Marathon is going very well. Since the Lighthouse Run, I've logged over 300 miles. Here are a few highlights:

Sunday, July 10: I ran ten miles in the area of Wisconsin that many people call "up north", through the towns of Minocqua, Woodruff, and Arbor Vitae. It was a great change of scenery from my usual runs.

Saturday, July 29: This was a VERY hot day. I was supposed to run nine miles at marathon pace. However, I started the run late (after 10 a.m.), I was running faster than marathon pace, and the temperature was quickly rising. Figuring that running two more miles would do more harm than good, I decided to stop at seven miles.

Sunday, August 6: I got caught in a downpour while running a 19-miler. Thankfully, I was less than a mile from home. I grabbed my rain jacket and finished the last few miles in a relatively dry state.

Tomorrow is the first of three 20-milers that I'll run in preparation for the marathon. I hope all goes well.