I ran for the 2nd full marathon on early Sun morning in the 37th Portland Marathon in Portland OR.The race started at 7am, but the group aiming for 4 hours was able to start 3~4 minutes later. The cloudy weather turned into rain from 8am and continued through out the race.
I did pretty well in keeping the pace at 9 min/mile until 11-mi point when I had a sharp pain on the left knee where I already had felt uncomfortable prior to the race. The concern just became reality and bothered me from keeping the pace. So, I had to slow down a little bit to move the runnig balance to the right leg mostly to ease the pain on the left knee.
I passed the half point (13.1 mi) at 2hr 1m 9s wearing the pain on left knee.However it began to swell and I thought I needed some medical assistance at around 16-mi point. The volunteer who looked at my knee suggested stop running at that point and put the ice pack on the left knee.
I sat on a chair and rested for 5~10 min there and then all of a sudden I felt fairly good and wanted to finish the race.
Yes I had already run for 16 mi and 10.2 more mi would give me another victory. So, I sneaked out of the medical assistance tent with a swollen knee and joined the race.
From that point, the biggest hill of the course started and continued for 3~4 miles, but I felt no problem running the uphill. I passed a lot of people on the hill to reach on top of the bridge keeping the pace between 9:20 and 9:40 per mile.However, the problem came up on the down hill where I felt a serious pain on the left knee at every single foot step.
I had to stop there and took another break for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the pain didn't go away, and, worst of all, my right leg that took too much burden to keep me moving from 11 mi point provided huge stress on it. I had to walk slowly for the rest of the race (5 mi I guess). Slow walk at 19:00 instead of running at 9:00 added extra 50 min for the rest 5 miles finishing at 4hr 53min 43s finally.
Good news is that I am still alive and the legs are still attached on my body, although left knee looks slightly bigger that the other for now.I will take some rest, skip the Seattle Marathon next month, and try again for the 3rd full marathon early next year.
