{"id":15751,"date":"2017-09-04T16:20:54","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T20:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=15751"},"modified":"2017-09-04T16:20:54","modified_gmt":"2017-09-04T20:20:54","slug":"the-inaugural-mainly-marathons-northwest-series-day-3-clarkston-wa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=15751","title":{"rendered":"The Inaugural Mainly Marathons Northwest Series \u2013 Day 3 \u2013 Clarkston, WA"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s taken me until this moment to realize why the next two towns in this series are named what they are.\u00a0 Situated on the banks of the Snake River, one is on the border of Washington State and the other is on the border of Idaho.\u00a0 Lewiston, ID, and Clarkston, WA, are named for famed explorers Lewis and Clark respectively.<\/p>\n

Separated by a drawbridge, these two cities would serve as the locations for Days 3-6 of the Northwest Series.\u00a0 Days 3 and 4 were to be held in Clarkston.\u00a0 I stayed in Lewiston so had a “long drive” to the start line this morning.<\/p>\n

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It would be another 14 loop course, although it would prove to be a bit longer than the loops in Pendleton.\u00a0 As a result, with each loop’s extra distance being tacked on each trip out and back to the black cone turnaround meant the final distance would be 14 times as long… in this case, close to a mile long at least according to my not-always-100%-accurate Garmin.<\/p>\n

The starting line at just prior to 4 AM:<\/p>\n

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Daniel ran out with me to do some last minute marking of the course with glow sticks.\u00a0 The original start time of 6 AM would have enabled the trail’s lighting to be on and active but because we were going “super early” not even the automated lighting systems were up and running yet.<\/p>\n

This is a lousy snapshot of the black cone turnaround — I wanted to capture the darkness and the glow sticks, and just generally give a flavor of this beacon in the night that called to us, that egged us on just a bit farther in each loop.\u00a0 Which I got, even though I physically stopped and framed the shot hoping to get it, is a blurry mess.\u00a0 But that might capture the feeling of running at 4 and 5 AM quite nicely.<\/p>\n

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Even without the desire to “beat the heat” with the early start, I always prefer the dark early morning for running. There’s a peacefulness and tranquility to running in those pre-dawn hours.\u00a0 Not many folks are up and about (even in the city, if you run at 3\/4 in the AM you’ve probably missed most of the closing time drinking crowd and are up too early for the early morning shifts).\u00a0 As we were near an RV Park, Mainly Marathons asked us to be respectful and quiet.\u00a0 Whispers of encouragement, not too loud to preclude disturbing the RV crowd, contributed to the peace and quiet.<\/p>\n

For me, somewhere around loop 8 the sun came up.\u00a0 And unfortunately these photos don’t remotely do justice to the ball of fire in the sky — it was something to behold, especially as it reflected on the Snake River’s calm waters.<\/p>\n

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I was really struggling at the end.\u00a0 I’m feeling better overall although I’m still coughing up gunk that makes one think I’m Typhoid Mary’s Secret Lover.\u00a0 And the third day of marathoning, and the 192nd day of sleep deficiencies aren’t exactly helping.\u00a0 Still, I powered through the course, trying to snap the final turnaround at the black cone which had been decorated by fellow runners with plastic toy sheep and a sheep beanie because it’s a “EWE” Turn.<\/p>\n

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In the end, I rang the newly installed victory bell and clocked in at a 3:51 and change final time.\u00a0 And thus I treated myself to some silver-dollar blueberry pancakes.<\/p>\n

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Tomorrow we’re back at this course once again.\u00a0 Knowing it’s not just long but close to a mile long will prove a mental challenge.\u00a0 So I may treat myself to an Effie Burger tonight.\u00a0 What’s an Effie Burger?\u00a0 I’ll post photos later.\u00a0 Let’s just say (Gondwanaland!\u00a0 Do I hate that phrasing!), it’s an effin’ big burger at Effie Burger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s taken me until this moment to realize why the next two towns in this series are named what they are.\u00a0 Situated on the banks of the Snake River, one is on the border of Washington State and the other is on the border of Idaho.\u00a0 Lewiston, ID, and Clarkston, WA, are named for famed […]<\/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-15751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15751","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=15751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}