Beethoven in Trance - Episode 48

Our first marathon was quite an experience.

We arried Portland OR on Oct. 3rd. and we went to a local Japenses supermarket right after. We had a great time shopping there and had its dinner box in its food court as well. We arrived our download hotel in the evening and called a night.

Woke up the next morning, we went to pick up our car and drove to some local ethnic stores. One Japense store, where we had our history lesson by the store owner. One Chinese-Vitnamese supermarket where I had great time touring its meat department. We shopped and bought its vietnamese lunch box at noon. The lunch was great, pork, tiger skin egg, fish, a pig feet soup and jasmine rice. We were very happy when we left the store.

Returned our rental, we took a light rail train from the airport back to downtown Portland. We won't need the rental on the race day, so we pay for it and its parking? We walked around downtown a bit and bought our dinner in Safeway. We had a mix salad, and some bread. We toasted the bread in the oven in the hotel, and it was goooooood.

Next morning we woke up early. We toasted some bagel we got the night before (they were so good), and ready for the race.

7am we started the race, it was cloudy and a bit chilli. I started the first mile all right, and when I got into mile 2, I started to feel my IT band near my knee getting crampy. At mile 3 I knew I will have to do another marathon because I was not at my best. After mile 5, well, I started to walk a bit more at the water station and stretch. Mile 7 and 8, I pretty much walked more than I ran. And it started to pull, we were wet and I was cold because I wasn't running. My wife was doing ok and she walked with me. I was managed to pass 13 mile mark and at that point, I wasn't able to run any more, and even walking was a challenge to me. From mile 13 and forward, I was limping and shaking in the raining. Eventually, I made it to a waterstation at mile 16.5 and I decided to quit the race. It was 1pm all ready and my firend Abi was waiting for us at the finishline. She will have to go back to Seattle around 6pm and I didn't believe I could finish the race before then. Considering that and the fact India trip is 3 days away, I said goodbye to my wife and waited at the station for a pickup to the med-aid station at the finish line. My wife went to finish the race.

At the finish line I got my IT band checked up and I met our friend Abi there. We waited till my wife crossing the finish line. She finished the last 10 miles in one hour and 45 mintues. We went back to hotel and Abi got me some painkiller for the leg. We went to Todai (the Japense seafood buffet) but it wasn't open till 5pm. So we went to Macroni grill across the street instead and had some snacks. The food was good there, and we had a good time together.

After saying goodbye to Abi at the train station, we went back to Todai (it's one of the reason we came to Portland for the race). I was thrilled to see all the Sashimi and jumbo shrimp. We started our raw fish eating spree, and by the end of the dinner, I was stuffed with raw fish.

The next day, we took the train back to airport and said good bye to Portland. I love that city, especially the food. The city is clean, and very culture oriented. It has a large asian populations and mexicans as well. When I was in Todai, all the food there is handled by mexicans (only one Japense, Chiense looking guy working there). I looked at them and said 'mexicans built this country'.

Back to Cleveland, there is some regret that I wasn't able to finish the race, but it wasn't a huge. I guess all great food made up the dissapointment, besides, my wife finished it, at least one of us did it.

Will have to have a physician to look at the problem.