The life of a Corporate Athlete : The Holiday Half Marathon in Portland

(en catalá en la següent entrada del blog)

Again, I had to travel to Portland (OR, United States) for business. This time I had a pretty busy agenda with long meetings starting early in the morning and finishing late evening. One week before traveling to US I decided to signup to the Holiday half marathon organized by the Oregonian foottraffic athletic club. Again, my friend Ramon also decided to participate to this event. Two Catalan folks running again in OR again (few months back in Eugene Marathon).

Usually, I used to stay in PDX downtown. However this time I decided to change my usual routing staying nearby the Nike Campus in Beaverton. This was certainly a good decision. Each morning I woke up at 5am, and at 5.30am I was already running in the Trail run that surrounds the Nike headquarters. It’s a really cool trail.

After my early & chilly running session

My first week in there was really tough! We had one of the most freezing and chilly weeks that US had in the last past 10 years. I was running early in the morning with 17F degrees (around -8º). During that week I basically did couple of 17kms easy runs, two interval training sessions (one with 1’+2’+3+5’+3’+2’+1’ at fast pace recovering 1 minute and the other 10 times 1’ fast + 1’ recovery), one progressive of 25 kms and one mountain run of 1h45. Second week, fortunately was way more warm, foggy but warm. Also the training was way easy. For easy runs and one day of 12x400m with a recovery of 40’’. The feelings were good, last 400 in 1’09 (good time considering the temperature: 32F or 0º). The day before the race I did 10kms + 4x60 meters. I felt a little bit tired. Usually when I travel for business I end up the travel really exhausted. The work we do is challenging and cool but really demanding.

The race day. It was starting at 8am. So with Ramon we had breakfast at 5am and went to the race place (Adidas campus) at 6h30 am. Probably too early :). 7h20 am we do warmup and 7h55 we are on the start line. I saw some runners that were looking very fit. Especially one of them, Ethiopian, was looking very strong. This guy was Anteneh Woticha. Hi is a pro 800/1500m guy that runs for Nike. A really good runner and person. We spoke quite a lot after the race. His level and humility impressed me. Going back to the race. Anteneh starts from the very beginning running fast. In only 1km he was already 50m behind us. 5 different athletes formed my group. With my coach we decided to do the 3 or 4 first keys in an easier pace. Thereby, at mile 3 I progressively start increasing my pace. I was seeing Anteneh closer and closer. Half marathon marker: Anteneh is only 6 meters ahead. I catch him mile 7. I keep my pace and I feel that Anteneh is not there any more. I try to push myself to try to do a good time. It’s certainly amazing, I keep up running at 3’20’’-3’22 mins/km and all the runners doing the 5km race are cheering me. There are also people cheering all around. The three police motorbikes lead me till the end of the half. I arrive at the end line in 1h11’50. Before arrive I say hello to the Santa placed in to the arrival and to the people staying there. After crossing the finish line I wait to Antheneh. He certainly paid the pace he followed the first mile. This was his debut in ½. I’m certainly sure that with some more experience he will bit me sooner than later. Pleasure to met you there. I hope we will see back into Nike Campus on my next travel to PDX.

Race results

In brief, happy for my second race in US and my first position. Also really happy to met again all my friends there. Special thanks to my Oregonian family Matas for their hospitality (Marcel will be next US athletic star?). Next time I hope will be able to run together with Intel mates in another race. They were running Cross country by the same date. They that have a very high level running profile!