Have you missed us?

So, um...yeah. It's been a while. At about the time of our last post Katje and I had just joined a team for the Portland to Coast marathon and decided we really needed to train hard for it. We'd heard horror stories about the heat, dust, blisters, hills, rocks, spandex...yeah, you're scared now, huh? If you've read our blog before, you've probably noticed that we're not what you would call serious hikers, and committing to walk the PTC is pretty huge. In looking at the various legs of the race, there are maybe 3 or 4 (of 24) that don't sound too bad, so we decided that we really needed to crack down and seriously train for this thing. Sometimes we walked with the other ladies on our team, and we increased our once weekly walks to twice a week. Usually. It was about July that we realized that we were a month out and probably not as ready as we should have been, so we found a longer neighborhood walk with a big hill, which we sweated up a couple times a week (why did we wait until July??), breaking in our newly purchased walking shoes and testing out the spandex. Which is really comfortable for walking in once I got over the fact that I look distinctly orca-like in spandex. Hey, it's the Portland to Coast, right? This orca was heading in the right direction.

Now, the way the Portland to Coast works is that each team splits into two cars of six people each. The first car takes the first six legs, then we switch off and van 2 takes over while van 1 rests, then we do it all over again. We were in van 2, which meant that we didn't have to start at 5am and we didn't have to walk all night, but we did get some of the worst legs of the race – I got the dusty one that nobody liked, Katje got the one with the Godawful hill, I got the longest leg, and Katje got the second longest leg, again with hills. Not as bad as the Godawful hill, but pretty steadily upward the whole way. Lucky us!

I was the second walker in van 2, so I walked leg 21 (they start numbering from Mt. Hood, where they start the Hood to Coast runners), 5.06 miles of breathing dust kicked up from the gravel road by all of the other teams' cars. Slow it down, people! It's hard enough just to walk on the ankle-turning gravel without having to eat your dust! I started out with my eye on a lady of about my size dressed all in pink, thinking I could catch up with her and maybe have someone to walk with for a while. Yeah, she left me in the dust (no pun intended). I passed a couple of people, got passed by a few more (people who get passed are called roadkill, and serious walkers actually count their 'roadkills' and post them on their vans. If I ever walk the PTC again I'm getting a t-shirt that says “Roadkill” on the back. Maybe I'll count my roadkillers and mark them on my shirt).

I finally finished my 5 miles and passed the baton – well, the slap bracelet – to Katje, who started her 6.7 mile walk with the aforementioned Godawful hill. She pushed really hard and hit the next exchange swollen footed and exhausted – but with a really good pace time! As we sent our last van 2 walker off we stopped at a grange fundraiser and Katje and I split a HUGE baked potato and a hamburger, then we picked up our last walker and went to a local school, which was renting out floor space in the gym for the racers. Katje, her daughter Nellie and I opted to sleep in the car rather than on the hard wooden floor, and spent most of the night discovering that runners, who were now catching up to us, are rude. They talk really loud, they slam doors repeatedly, and they seem perfectly okay with the dents they put in your car by not watching how wide they opened their doors. Between that and the GPS screen that would not turn off, we didn't get a whole lot of sleep.

Next morning we got up early and traded out with van1 for our last quarter of the race. Katje and I had exchanged so she took the 7.2 mile leg and I took the hillier 6.9 miles. Best idea ever! While she was on leg 33 the wind started to come up and the rain started to come down. It was even worse for Nellie on leg 34 (fortunately a short one) and by the time I took off on leg 35 we had sustained winds of 30 mph with 50 – 60 mph gusts and the race organizers were telling everyone to continue at their own discretion, with no penalties for dropping out. Did I mention how changing legs with Katje was the best idea ever? I LOVE walking in the wind and rain! Okay, so I had to pause when the wind gusted really strongly to avoid getting blown off the road, but it was so much fun! 

This leg of the race turns off onto a private back road and your van has to go around and meet you at the end of it. I took off on the back road – no cars, just the wind and the rain and the runners roadkilling me - and boy, was it windy. You'd see runners get blown sideways in midair between strides, and we had one gust that actually slid me back a couple of inches on the gravel road. I met a nice young man (God, I sound old!) who slowed down to walk with me for a while, telling me about his teammates and the celebratory pina coladas they were planning for their after-race party. With him slowed down and me walking my absolute fastest so I didn't hold him back too much, we stayed together for probably a couple of miles before he went back to his regular pace and quickly disappeared from view.

It was actually starting to get a bit miserable with a steady soaking mist and gusts of wind blowing branches and pine needles across the trail when all of a sudden the heavens opened up and it poured. It was glorious! Not too long after that we met up with the regular road, about half a mile from the exchange. I was a little worried about my time, figuring the wind gusts had probably slowed me waaay down, but thanks to Pina Colada Guy I came in at two hours instead of the three I was expecting. Thank you Pina Colada Guy!

Usually at the end of the Hood/Portland to Coast there's a big celebration at Seaside, and you end the race by meeting up with the rest of your team and running across the beach to the finish line together. And then there's music and food and beer and vendors and basically just a huge celebration on the sand...unless of course there's a windstorm that blows all of the tents down and throws everything around so violently that they have to drag the vendors and sponsors off the beach and just let their stuff blow around until it all slows down enough that nobody is in danger of being killed by it. Other members of our team had rented a house and were staying the night, so Katje's husband David drove down to Seaside to pick us up, and he took us to Camp 18 for a wonderful dinner (mmm, beef stew) and then home.

Now the question you'd probably like to ask is this: would we do it again? The answer is a qualified yes. Having done it once, we now know that the teams who decorate their cars and ring cow bells (it's a thing) and yell encouragement to all of the walkers they pass really do make a difference for morale. When there are five women dressed as chickens waiting at the side of the road to tell you that you're doing a great job, it helps. So if we did it again we would decorate the cars and maybe dress up a little (no chicken costumes, though, that's a whole other level of bravery) and ring our cowbells in encouragement as we went by. And if someone could guarantee me another rainy day instead of the usual August hot and dry, I'd sign up in a heartbeat.