Thursday, February 09, 2012

Looking for Great Marathon? Try Newport!

I was trying to get excited about training for a half marathon, but my true love is the marathon. I know something is wrong with me, but I just crave distance! I look forward to the long runs, and even joined one of my friends for an 18 miler when I wasn't trained for it. I wouldn't suggest that, but I love the new scenery that a longer run brings. Sometimes, I just get tired of the same 5 mile loops. So, I decided to sign up for the Newport Marathon. I would love for others to join me. I have run it 3 times. It was my first marathon and later became my PR marathon. Here is what I love about it:

1. Spring marathon- I love that it keeps me training through the winter.
2. Weather- Very mild temperature- usually in the 50's
3. Elevation- It's at the beach- so zero elevation. All of you that are at higher elevation would feel much better running at the coast!
4. Course- At mile 5 it becomes an out and back along the bay, very pretty view. Fairly flat with one hill that you go over at mile 5 and mile 26.
5. It is one of the top Boston Qualifiers. (Someday for me!)
6. Small- 900 people

To be fair, I will list the drawbacks:
1. I would prefer a point to point.
2. Coming back feels slightly uphill, but I am not sure if this is just because I am tired.
3. Not much crowd support because it is hard to get to the course. Half of the road is closed off.
4. I have not loved my race shirts, but the last one was finally a tech shirt. :-)

So, if you are looking for a race, come join me on June 2nd. Oregon is beautiful!

http://newportmarathon.org

It is filling up fast!

What other races are you ladies running? I would love to keep a running list on the side again! Good luck!

4 comments:

Latter-day Runner said...

The Newport Marathon and the Ogden Marathon are both at the top of my list for Spring marathons. I plan to do one or the other in 2013. I wish I could do one this year! I think I give the edge to sea level over a downhill course, but I'll report back after I've finished both. I'm hoping that when I do run Newport, it will become my Boston Qualifier.

Kelly(M&M) said...

Nikkei, I think an awesome plan would be to run the Ogden Marathon as a tuneup 20 miler to your goal race of the Newport Marathon. You will be back in the game soon! I loved Ogden, but I do seem to be affected by elevation, so I am not running Utah marathons any more as goal races. Where do you live?

Latter-day Runner said...

Kelly, I live on the hills in Spokane, WA, so my elevation is close to the halfway point between the Newport Marathon and the Ogden Marathon. Since there are so many hills around here, it is easy to train for downhill, but I think my best performance is probably going to be on a fairly flat course. I would like to do both Ogden and Newport in 2013, but they are just two or three weeks apart, and I'm afraid that after Ogden my quads are going to be too sore to perform my best at Newport. Maybe I'll do both or I'll just do one and give it everything I have.

cherl said...

Running list on the sidebar is a great idea! I'm running the LA Marathon 3/18, the Carlsbad 5000 4/1, the Ojai Marathon 6/3 and the Camp Pendleton 10K Mud Run 6/9. Then I'll be broke. ;-)