The rain in Portland is believed by many to be this constant downpour. In fact it doesn’t do that too often. First off we have a rainy season (or seasons) which is usually from the end of October – November and then February-June. Our summers are exceptionally dry. Secondly our rains are more of a drizzle. People up here often bitch about it, or local news are the biggest belly achers. Me, I love the drizzle. It is the perfect weather to run in. Nice and cool and usually little wind. This was the case with my run this morning. I found myself starting out at a fast pace (for me) that I was able to keep up for about 3/4’s of my run. The mile and a half of today’s 6.5 was a bit slower and then I kicked it into gear for the last 1/4. Over all my pace was an 8:35 minute mile, about what I was doing when I was training for the Portland Marathon, ahh, those were the days!
Here is a good blog posting on a simple strategy for running a fast marathon. Many of the ideas are equally applicable if you are running it slowly.