Daren Lindley

Daren Lindley Places in the Portland Marathon!

One of the little known facts about the Portland Marthon that I ran in yesterday was that I placed! Yes, I was thrilled to find out that I came in 6511th place! I literally beat thousands of people! Approximately 2,000! I can't tell you how thrilled I am that there were that many people who ran in this event.

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It was really fun! my motivation started when I went on a hike with pastor David Pepper and some of his staff from Church on the Rock in Wasilla, Alaska. David runs marathons and I quickly noticed that his level of fitness was quite a bit better than mine. So after an additional conversation with Steven Wall of Fairbanks, Alaska, I decided to commit.

Training...

I really started getting serious with my training in May. It didn't seem to take too long to move up in my distances. I increased the duration of my runs by two miles or so every two weeks. Starting at 4 miles my furthest distance prior to the Portland Marathon was 20 miles. While I only ran that once, I ran more than 15 miles quite a few times.

My Son Nathan and I before the Portland Marathon

While training I was eating very low carb. This made the longer runs much more difficult. I finally realized that I needed to leave the low carb approach and get a good supply of carbs in my system befor I did a long run. Three days be for the PDX Marathon I started eating plenty of carbs. Not pigging out but not avoiding them at all.

On the actual marathon run I also carried "Gu," a thick sugary gel that is easy to suck down while running. It actually tastes really good! This was essential to my completing the run with the energy I had.

A picture at about mile one taken on my cell phone.

Once I started running I monitored my heartrate closely with my Garmin 305 GPS watch which faithfully told me how far into the race I was. I tried to keep my heart rate below 140 for the first 3 miles, then as my endorphins started kicking in I gradually raised it to 150 by mile 8. By the halfway point of 13.1 miles I was running in the high 150s.  The last eight miles I was always above 160. In the last few hundred yards I got up to about which is totally anarobic for me.

My Heart Rate over the course of the Portland Marathon.

To me it was interesting to see that by allowing my heartrate to rise at this rate my speed stayed exactly steady. Almost all my splits were the same speed 13:30 per mile, give or take a few seconds.

This chart shows my speed with the blue line and my heartrate with the red line.

When it comes to heart, I was so inspired by a guy as we were running up the approach to the St John's bridge. It was the steepest and longest hill of the run. He had a skeletal deformation that twisted his body radically to the left. As we climbed the hill, I came up beside him and said, "Buddy, you are such a stallion." He immediately responded back, "So are you!" But get this, he had stayed ahead of me for 16 miles! We ran together for a while and then I didn't see him again until about mile 20. When I saw him, I almost started weeping. My biggest obstacle is my laziness. He had overcome some really big stuff to run this race.

During the race I saw all manner of people who had overcome enormous obstacles. One fellow walked the entire route (I didn't pass him until about mile 6) with titanium double hip replacements. He wore a placard on his jersey calling himself "The Bionic Man" 

Pounding out the last few feet of the Portland Marathon

 The euphoria of the finish line is quite thrilling. It's a whole differernt feel from running in training. The crowds and the cheering and the banners add up to make it very rewarding.

 When I held this T-shirt, I knew it had been worth it all! :-) It was really just a super fun day.

My fab son-in-law, Adam, my daughter, bri, me, and my sweetheart, Tammi.

 Adam traded places so my son, Nathan could be in a pic.

Thanks to all my friends who sent me encouraging tweets and facebook comments. You made this so much fun.