Race Review: Portland Rock n' Roll Half Marathon (Part 1)

Tweet

Unless you're following my FaceBook Page you may be wondering where have I been this week? Well, we were in Portland for the race this weekend and within hours of returning I came down with the stomach flu or food poisoning, still not quite sure what's going on. Feeling the way I feel right now it's hard to believe I had such a fun-filled race weekend but I really did. I've decided to break this post up into two parts since it was a whole weekend of events and I have a lot of photos and a lot to say about it!

On Saturday AM we got up very early and headed towards the border, I have to say that at that particular hour I wasn't feeling very excited about a long drive but off we went. Cody (my husband) made sure to dial up the "90's on 9" on Sirius for some great tunes HA HA!

After the longish wait at the border we had a great drive to Portland with only one stop! I took lots of pictures entering Oregon as I haven't been there since I was a little girl and I don't remember it anyway.

We stopped for a quick bite to eat and off we went towards the expo. I was excited because I had a feeling the Rock n' Roll Marathon group would put on a great expo and I certainly wasn't disappointed. As much as I loved all the race branded Brooks gear I decided not to purchase anything this time around and maybe wait for Seattle.












Picking up my race bib was easy as pie... but it was funny finding out that there was someone with my mother in law's exact name on the list right above mine (who by the way is also a runner)?!? We made sure to send her the photo and asked why we didn't know she was running the race, of course she wasn't because she was back home in Vancouver babysitting our little guy but it was funny none the less:


After that we headed over to the Brook's Run Happy Calvalcade of Curiosities, where there was a set of carnival themed activities you could do to win discounts on Brook's gear or other neat things. I won a t-shirt and Cody won a foam finger for me which is supposed to replicate the "Facebook Poke Button", it got kind of annoying after awhile but at least he had some fun at the expo...









We took our time touring the Expo seeing as how we didn't have any definite plans for the rest of the day. I left with a lot of free samples and of course my giant bib.
This is one of my only complaints for this race and I'm not sure it's really a complaint or more of an observation but the bib really is huge, I had a hard time fitting it above my race belt.

I even got an opportunity to see some of the race bling I'll have coming my way after completing the Portland Rn'R Half & Seattle Rn'R Half!















As we left the expo it started to rain, though I knew it was a definite possibility I wasn't thrilled about it, I was really hoping for a dry race day. After checking into our hotel we ventured out into Portland on foot to explore. Despite the rain we headed over to a local hot spot called "Voodoo Donuts"... When we got there this is what we saw:

Yea - that's right a lineup just for donuts! Could they be that good? We sort of wanted to find out so we agreed to stand in the line for a few minutes and see how fast it was moving. After 10 minutes it really wasn't moving very fast but we'd already wasted 10 minutes so we decided we were in it for the long haul.

Was it worth it? I decided I was only going to have one of my chosen donuts (we each chose 3) before race day and save the other two for a post race treat. It was a pretty glorious doughnut I have to say. Worth an hour and a half wait? I suppose that depends on how much you love doughnuts and the company beside you in line, but I certainly had fun even in the rain.

After standing in the rain for that long we decided to trash the going out for dinner plan and put on some sweatpants, order room service, and watch a movie. Another glorious idea I might add because I sure was rested for my race the next morning!














Before I finally went to bed I laid out all my race stuff in preparation for my 15th half marathon, wow I can't believe it -- 15! That's 9 in 2013 alone!