Mark Sundstrom

Six weeks to go to the Columbus Marathon. The Jeff Galloway workout plan for this week was a 26 mile easy run for Sunday. Since the weather forecast for Sunday was still for fairly warm temperatures and thunderstorms, I pushed it back to Monday, which had a forecast for temperatures in the low 60s. This turned out well, and I went to a nearby park, Three Creeks, to run the trails, some of them multiple times, in order to cover the 26 mile distance. (Of course, I had to make it exactly 26.22 miles...).

This is the longest training run I've ever done; before I'd only covered this distance in the 5 marathons that I've walked. I settled into a run/walk average pace of about 11:55/mi, a bit faster than I'm supposed to do, but it feels like a natural long distance slow pace for me. (I did 11:48/mi in my 23 mile training run 3 weeks ago).

After 2-3 miles, the pace felt like something I could do "forever". By 12-13 miles, I knew I had done a decent workout, but was only halfway done. I crossed the half marathon point in 2:35:36, which is 11:56/mi pace. The next 6 miles went pretty well, but by the 20 mile point, I was starting to be ready for this to be done. I alternated run and walk mostly at random throughout the run, rather than sticking to my usual plan of run 3 minutes, walk for 1. By 23 miles, I'm really ready to be done, still close to the 11:56/mile pace, but I ended up walking most of the last 2 miles, finishing in 5h17m for an overall average of 12:07/mile.

My knees are a bit sore, (icing helps!) but not as sore as what I remember from each of the 5 walking marathons that I've done. So I'm happy with the results – there is nothing quite like covering the actual distance you're doing to need to do in the race.

Here is the GPS track for the entire run, at Garmin Connect

I really enjoy this park; it's flat and reasonably scenic for Ohio -- farmland, next to a river, and trees. I was parked about midway, so I could swing by the truck and get extra water or food if I needed it. I bought brand new running shoes yesterday and used them – they were perfect – but just in case, I had an old pair stashed in the truck that I could substitute.

And an audiobook helped the time go by faster, too.

A blog I wrote in October 2004, about spending the month driving cross country, east to west, and walking in two full marathons.

Marathon Month

Updated 2011: I haven't walked the Portland Marathon since 2004, mostly because of my move to Columbus, but it remains one of my favorite marathons.

I walked the Portland Marathon for the second time last Sunday; this is my third marathon walk overall. My time was 6 hours, 17 minutes and 9 seconds -- about 19 minutes faster than my time from last year and about 7 minutes slower than my fastest marathon. This is a pace of 14:23 per mile.

Last year's Portland Marathon was my first ever and I found it very tough, in part because my training had not included enough long walks. By the halfway point last year, I was tired and wasn't sure how I was going to finish it; by about mile 20 I was ready for it to be over. I did finish but I was pretty sore for several days.

This year, both the experience and improved training really paid off. I did start slower than I had anticipated because I was concerned about some recent lingering leg soreness. After 3 or 4 miles, everything seemed fine and I picked up the pace. By the halfway point, I was feeling good and was sure I would finish. I walked the last 4 or 5 miles at close to 13:00 per mile pace and felt good but sore at the finish. My recovery has been much faster than last year's.

The music and festive atmosphere again made a big difference; there is a large turnout for this event and live music performed every mile or two for most stretches. The weather was mild, foggy for most of the morning but sunny by the time I finished about 1:20pm. I will definitely be walking this event again next year.

Some photos I took on the marathon walk are here.

Give or take a few, it takes me about 50,000 steps to walk a marathon. And last Sunday in Seattle, it also took 6 hours and 10 minutes.

There were 339 people walking the full marathon. Seattle uses a staggered start and all the full walkers start first at 7:15am. I started rather fast and kept that going nicely for 11-12 miles, taking 13:30-14:00 per mile. (My overall Portland Marathon average was 15:08).

After two miles, the half marathon runners, who started at 7:30, started catching and passing us. There were more than 5,000 of them and it made some of the narrow spots a bit hectic. the walkers stayed over to the right but some of the runners are pretty intent on passing. One other walker was confused by all of it and asked me if I were a walker, just to make sure she hadn't missed a turn. I assured her she hadn't and just to 'defend her space', i.e., don't let the runners intimidate you. Anyway, at about 4.7 miles, the runners continue north along Lake Washington and the walkers go out on the I-90 bridge, so we don't see them again.

The half marathon walkers start at 7:45 and the full marathon runners start at 8:15.

While it wasn't windy in downtown Seattle, immediately coming out the Mt Baker tunnel onto the I-90 floating bridge, there was a decent breeze blowing so it felt rather cool; I usually wore my lightweight gloves and kept my hat on. We walked all the way to Mercer Island, just into the tunnel and then you turn around and walk back to Seattle. Just after the turnaround was when the first marathon runners started catching up. I'd walked about 7 miles at this point.

After getting off the floating bridge, we walk south along the lake to Seward Park; this is quite scenic. Even though marathon runners are passing constantly, there aren't nearly as many of them (2,300) so it's not too hectic.

The breeze was still coming from the north but it was sunny. The halfway point is at the north end of Seward Park, which I passed in 3:01:58. My right leg was hurting by this point but some aspirin helped a bit. I bring food with me also and would have something to eat every 3 or 4 miles. My pace slowed down some, thanks to the hurt, for a pace in the 14:10 to 14:50 range.

Unlike in Portland where there were always lots of other runners/walkers, by mile 17 people are quite spread out and I'm mostly by myself. I see very few other walkers by this point, mostly runners.

My leg gets a bit better and I did okay miles 18-23, thru and up the Interlaken, another scenic area. Boy did those hills hurt. I had brought my audio book with me and that helped quite a bit; didn't have it in Portland.

At mile 23.5 I had a sharp pain in my right heel, almost as if someone had stuck a pin in it. Ugh! felt like a blister and was a big surprise since my feet had been feeling great. Usually blisters creep up on me and become a problem gradually, but in this case I went from 'just find' to 'bad' in one stride. That forced me to slow down for a mile or two, but I was able to pick up the pace some for the last mile.

So the final time was 6:10:46 I'm very pleased with the time and I think I would have been under 6:10 without the blister problem. Also, I think that if I can avoid or minimize some of the leg pain during, I could get under 6 hours. As a comparison, my half marathon time a year ago was 2:55:30, so you can see I did the first half of this one only 6 minutes slower than that; and I thought that was fast last year.

The recovery area was inside, which was nice and warm. Not too much food around compared to Portland - bananas, apples, oranges, smoothies. Portland had a lot more variety. I think overall Portland has more crowd support, though there was a lot in Seattle too. Portland also had lots and lots of music, live and otherwise; that would be harder at this time of year.

The wind made it chillier than I had expected from the forecast, but the hat and gloves worked great.

My right knee was very sore Sunday night and all day Monday I was generally sore all over, not able to walk very much. Each day it gets better and by now, Thursday morning, I am getting close to normal.

In the group of 339 full walkers, I finished 25th. When I could see those ahead of me (on the floating bridge turnaround), most of them were slow runners, there were a few walkers. I think that quite a few people who are actually runners but expect to be very slow actually enter in the full walk; that gives them the hour head start and a smaller start group. Smart for them, but makes them harder to distinguish from true walkers like myself. In my gender/age division (8 of us, I finished 4th). These are preliminary results.

It's overall a very scenic course and with the sunny weather I really enjoyed it. You are walking for many miles along Lake Washington and that's hard to beat. I had previously walked all of the course at various times (except for the floating bridge) and I think that helped compared with Portland, as I had a sense of the distance remaining. I remember in Portland that it seemed VERY LONG and I wondered a few times how I'd finish. Here, however, I never really had any doubts (though that heel blister at mile 23 made me wonder for a moment or two).

I need more long training walks, so as to better prepare for the inevitable pains that come with that long distance. I'm not running out of stamina, it's just getting all the body parts to work well for that length of time.

Note: I originally wrote this on 8 October 2003, a few days after walking my first marathon. I've corrected a typo here and there.

I walked the Portland Marathon last Sunday, along with about 7,000 other walkers and runners. 6 hours and 36 minutes, a pace of just about 4 miles per hour or just over 15 minutes per mile. While my right knee got especially sore for the last 4 miles, I was glad to have participated in this well organized event. Most marathons cater to runners and usually the course is not kept open long enough for walkers. The Portland Marathon keeps the course open for 8 hours, long enough for almost all walkers.

The route winds back and forth through downtown Portland for the first 4 or 5 miles, and the backtracking allows several views of the participants who are ahead of you. There was a wide variety of live music, seemingly every mile or two. The music made a big difference. There are so many walkers in this event that one is never alone. And the scenery is often quite good -- the highest point on the route is the St John's Bridge over the Willamette River, northwest of downtown. From that point you can look over and contemplate just how far away downtown appears to be; there's about 8+ miles left to go at that point and the best runners have long since finished.

In this photo, taken from the St Johns Bridge, the downtown buildings are far off in the distance in the upper right.

St Johns Bridge

The weather was cloudy but temperatures were comfortable -- almost too warm; a slight cooling breeze would have been welcome several times.

At this point, the walk is almost over; the finish line is just around the corner, so it's time for the fat lady to sing (and you do indeed hear recorded opera music)

And now, around the corner, the finish line is about 100 yards away.

I traveled to Portland via the Amtrak Cascades train, a reasonable and much less stressful alternative to driving. I will definitely be walking this marathon next year.