{"id":15749,"date":"2017-09-03T17:43:13","date_gmt":"2017-09-03T21:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=15749"},"modified":"2017-09-03T17:43:13","modified_gmt":"2017-09-03T21:43:13","slug":"the-inaugural-mainly-marathons-northwest-series-day-2-once-again-pendleton-or","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=15749","title":{"rendered":"The Inaugural Mainly Marathons Northwest Series \u2013 Day 2 \u2013 Once Again: Pendleton, OR"},"content":{"rendered":"

I took the 4 AM Super Early Start. It was in the low 60s throughout the darkness and even as the sun rose at 6:14-ish.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/a>\"\"<\/a> \"\" <\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Race Director Emeritus Clint Burleson was invited back by the Brothers Ruekert to start us at 4 and he announced they were also graciously letting him direct a day of Mainly Marathon’s inaugural Alaska races next July. That will make Clint the first person to race direct a marathon in all 50 states. I always knew Daniel and Jesse were great guys and had high hopes for them taking over the business; hearing them do this only reinforced my respect and love for those two.<\/p>\n

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But as the starting bell GONGED, we SUPER-early birds were off round and round we went.<\/p>\n

Round and round. Round and round.<\/p>\n

There’s not much to write as I kinda put my head down and just put in the mileage. And some of the course photos from yesterday still apply. But instead of my 50sub4 shirt today I was wearing the “white is not my color” series shirt. For some reason white running shirts always make me look incredibly pale and particularly chunky. Today was no exception.<\/p>\n

But unlike yesterday, I’m feeling a bit better though still far from 100%. My side has gone from chronic pain to the occasional stabbing sensation — so either the Rambo III effect solved the problem or Short Round is beating the crap out of that kid with the voodoo doll. Either way, I seem to be improving… if all too slowly.<\/p>\n

Ditto with the head cold. It’s been forever but I at least seem to have hit bottom and am slowly rising back up. Far too slowly and I still can’t breathe, but now and again I can grab a deep breath here and there.<\/p>\n

Round and Round. Round and round.<\/p>\n

Not everyone had gotten the message about the super early start, so more folks joined us at the early 5 AM start and then some more people joined in at the usual 6 AM start time.<\/p>\n

The sun started to rise around loop 8 or 9.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the end, I was a little faster than yesterday, clocking in at 3:49:47.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

After packing up to drive the 137 miles +\/- to the next few days’ races, I stopped at the one Roadside American attraction I missed yesterday here in Pendleton, OR.<\/p>\n

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you FrankenTank.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What is FrankenTank?\u00a0 It appears to be a version of Frankenstein as a boiler with a mini Frankenstein head coming out of his torso, a Total Recall<\/em>-ian Kuato FrankenTank?<\/p>\n

The official line, at least according to RA<\/a>, is that it’s the 2008 graffiti work of an immigrant Pendletonian artist who was only there for 3 months before moving to the East Coast.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But what does it mean?\u00a0 No one can tell you what FrankenTank means.\u00a0 You have to see it for yourself… even if it’s only in crappy digital images.\u00a0 The reality is… underwhelming?\u00a0 I wouldn’t call it a monsterpiece, that’s for sure.\u00a0 But I also wouldn’t say it’s alive… alive! with fun.\u00a0 It just sorta… is.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Quick side note on my 2:45 drive to Lewiston, ID:<\/p>\n

My rental car is eating itself. I thought the flapping noise I heard was a flat tire but I pulled over twice on the highway to check and the tires always seemed fine. It was only as I pulled into Lewiston, ID, and stopped for lunch that I got on the ground and looked at the undercarriage. There, near the wheel well, was a rip in the front bumper connection. I never hit anything while I was driving; this cheap material has literally disintegrated during my drive.<\/p>\n

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Sigh. It’s always something.<\/p>\n

On the plus side, if I keep it under 25 mph, it doesn’t flap.\u00a0 So my 320 mile drive back to Seattle Airport on Thursday could be VERY long indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took the 4 AM Super Early Start. It was in the low 60s throughout the darkness and even as the sun rose at 6:14-ish. Race Director Emeritus Clint Burleson was invited back by the Brothers Ruekert to start us at 4 and he announced they were also graciously letting him direct a day of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}