Helvetia Half Marathon

At about mile 10 I was wondering, why the hell did I pass up a trip to Bandon Dunes to run a half marathon? It was a little bit of a struggle today. I should have know when I had a great 11 mile run last week; you never have a good race if you have a good practice run the week before.

The Helvetia Half is a great race, it starts at the Hillsboro Stadium, circles through some beautiful countryside, then back to the stadium. It is a pretty hilly track, which can be a test for people who have not practiced on hills. It is very well supported with lots of water and aid stations. You also get a nice medal and t-shirt for finishing. The best part about finishing (apart from being done) is the free Helvatia Tavern burger and the beer garden. Nothing tastes better than a cold beer and a burger after 13.1 miles at 11:00 AM. As I said, this is a great race, and it is consistently voted the best half marathon in Oregon, but I wonder if it is growing too big. They had over 4000 runners there today and the result was a huge traffic jam trying to get in and out of the parking area. Hopefully next year they will have more cops out there on traffic control.

I started out slow today, then picked up the pace at around three miles. I was going well until about eight miles, when all of a sudden I felt really tired. The rest of the way in was hard work, as the mile markers that were flying by earlier, seemed to be taking forever to appear. Finally at mile 12, I saw the stadium again and that made it a lot easier to get home. The one thing you always forget as you are finishing is that extra .1 you have to run after you see the 13 mile marker. I clocked myself at 2:40, but my official time will be a little higher as I had to stand in a long line for the bathroom at mile 5. All in all, I am happy with my time as I was hoping to beat 2:45.