Helvetia Half Marathon
Well, as I’m writing this I’m *almost* over the half. 
It happened as planned on Saturday (the 9th). As far as weather goes, it was just about as nice as could be asked for. The sky was overcast all day. It was barely sprinkly as we started off at 8am, and steadily increased in intensity and decreased in temp throughout the day. I figure it was in the low 60s when the 1/2 started, and in the 50s when the I finished.
Welcome to June in Portland! LOL 
This time around there were no blisters …. no standing in line at the honey buckets … and no joint pains along the course. These are all GOOD things. The result was that I did a better time in 2007 than i did in 2005, and I know I was in better shape in 2005. Still my first 6.5 miles were done at a pace of 4.8mph, and the last 6.5 were done at 4.9 miles. It takes about 2 miles to get out of the pack so that really slows you down.
In 2005 I did the Helvetia in 2:47. This year I did it in 2:41:59. As Red Weston says, life just begins at 50! LOL. So yeah, I did better at 50 than I did at 48.
Were there any downsides to this year’s race? Just a couple. One happens ever year. That is, at the end of the race you’re in a nice stadium, and they have you climb up a couple of flights of stairs to leave. C’mon folks, I just finished busting my tail. Climbing stairs is NOT something I’m looking forward to. I swear they do this just to give the EMT’s at the end something to do. The second one was that like all good PNW events, there’s beer at the end. This is MicroBrew Heaven, after all. Well, sitting outside in the cold, wet rain … having a nice cold beer .. sure put a chill in the proceedings .. pun DEFINITELY intended. 3/4 of the way through my cup I figured I wanted to get back to my car so I could turn on the heat and electric seats and warm up! That last 1/4 of the plastic cup disappeared in less than 1/4 of a second.
Now I can start lifting weights again! For the month of May I really couldn’t find the time to do both .. lift weights at the gym and get in the training walks. So, I’ll be starting up my walks again getting ready for the Portland Marathon in October, but it won’t be a crash course trying to get ready after the long, cold winter. I have the summer to walk … and find time to heft some iron.
