Kim really went all out for planning birthday this year, so it was a really good one. Last week she planned a little surprise party, and yes, I was surprised. I thought we were just going to Hopworks for happy hour, but when I got there I kept seeing people I knew and at first I just thought it was a coincidence. Then I realized there too many people to be a coincidence and that Kim had organized a gathering. After happy hour we all came back to our house to sit around our fire pit, play Rock Band and board games.
This weekend Kim planned a trip to Breitenbush Hot Springs. We did a native american sweat lodge on Thursday. That was an intense experience. I thought it would be more like a sauna, but I didn’t expect it to be so physically uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable because there were so many people crammed into such a small, dark, hot place for around 3 hours. The physical discomfort wasn’t all bad. In fact, I think that’s a large part of the experience since being uncomfortable forces you to be very present and in the moment.
We camped a few miles from the hot springs in the national forest since that was free, then returned Friday for a day of soaking in the hot waters. We soaked all morning, and then went for a hike to look for mushrooms in the afternoon. We had dinner at the lodge both nights, and the food is very good. It’s buffet style, so we ate a very light lunch so that we could eat more at dinner and because being stuffed while you’re in the hot pools wouldn’t be very goo.
All in all it was a very relaxing couple of days and a great birthday week. We should celebrate birthdays for a week more often :-)
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Feeling good around mile 20
Where did August and September go? I know where a lot of it went – marathon training. And now I’m done with that for a while and will get a big chunk of time in my life back. As of yesterday I’ve run a marathon. And boy do I hurt today. In training the farthest I ran was 20 miles. Turns out the last few miles of a marathon are the hardest. Who’d have thought? Seriously, after mile 23 I had to really focus just to keep my legs moving. I did it though, and it feels pretty good to have done it.
My parents and my brother came to Portland for the weekend, Kim took the day off work, and I saw them cheering me on a few times while I was running. Fortunately they only saw me when I was doing pretty well, which was around mile 20 and at the very end when only the adrenaline from the crowd and knowing I’d soon be done kept me going. I started out strong, got a little worried when I had to stop and tape some blisters around mile 6, picked up the pace from there all the way through mile 20 or so, and then started to hurt around mile 22.
The white stuff on my face is salt from sweat
I really don’t think I’ve felt quite like I felt past mile 23 before. Fortunately I had learned from my training runs how not to get too dehydrated or starving, but my muscles just wanted to shut down after a while despite being hydrated and eating enough liquid gold (honey and molasses). Every mile felt much longer than the one before, and I did in fact slow down quite a bit, but I persevered and crossed the finish line running. Once there I ate everything in site. Oh yeah, my time was 4 hours and 31 minutes. That’s about 15 minutes faster than I though I was going to do it, so I’m pretty pleased.
Everyone asks if I’ll do it again, and I’m definitely holding off on answering that for now. Certainly not anytime in the next few months. I’ll be glad to have such large chunks of time back for other stuff for a while.
