Columbia Gorge 1/2 Marathon 2012

Columbia Gorge 1/2 Marathon 2010 


































This is the 4th year that Susan and I ran the Columbia Gorge 1/2 Marathon and 2nd that her dad ran it. This is a road race, but it has to be one of the most scenic road races around. I think it caps around 1000 people, so it relatively small race and never feels crowded.

I was happy that the race started at it's original start location, last year they bused us 2 miles from the original start so we could avoid a hill. Frankly I like the hill at the start, it gets your heart going, warms you up and makes the rest of the race seem pretty easy, though there are several more, shorter hills.

elevation profile


We were afraid that it was going to rain on us the whole time, and we spend quite a bit of time debating wearing rain jackets or not. Luckily the rain held out, and I was actually pretty warm in my long sleeve shirt. It ended up being a gorgeous fall day, we even got a few rainbows.

 Most of the run is on the historic Columbia River Highway, which is lined with trees changing colors and magnificent views of the Columbia River Gorge. The turn around point is just after passing through the Mosier Tunnel, the wind in the tunnel was amazingly still heading into the tunnel, but on the way back we got a bit of a head wind. The last 2 miles, I couldn't seem to catch my breath and was having a hard time keeping up with Susan. As we rounded the corner to the finish line some guy told us to speed up and pass all the people head of us. I didn't think there was anyway I could pass anyone, but somehow we ended up passing most of the people ahead of us. I seriously thought I was going to puke when we crossed the finish line. Susan told me we finished in 1:40, which explained why I was so winded, it was 16 minutes faster than the previous year. The first thing I did was text my dad about it, but he checked the timing site and we actually did 1:54:14. It is still a PR, but not the same as 1:40, it was nice thinking we were that fast for a few minutes.

We finished up with recovery beers and pizzas at my favorite place Double Mountain, which is the real reason I run the race every year.

We unfortunately didn't take any pictures this year, but The Hood River News got some good ones.


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