Violet Sky

Every year, I like to make New Year’s resolutions. I’m fundamentally a goal-based person – the kind of person who works well off of to-do lists, who will play a game and systematically complete every step and side quest, and who (conversely) tends to lose steam or end up adrift without something long-term to work towards in my life.

The last several years, one of my resolutions has been something like “run an organized half marathon and at least one other race.” I’ve accomplished those fairly handily, but in 2023, our chosen half marathon was in the fall instead of the spring, so neither my husband nor I were especially feeling launching into a spring training block so soon after finishing the other one. Instead, one of my resolutions this year was to run an organized 10k race every quarter of the year.

I recall there being some reason schedule-wise why we wanted to do the Cinco de Mayo 10k, but honestly, I can’t remember what that reason was. I’m a huge fan of Hal Higdon’s training programs, so we dusted the Novice 10k program off again for this run. There was no performance-related goal here – just run whatever feels good and see how things turn out. Enter the Portland Cinco de Mayo run!

The course itself was fairly straightforward – an out and back from Oaks Park to the 3ish mile turnaround right after the Springwater Corridor entrance. Several years ago, I ran a different race that started in the same spot, but headed east along the Springwater Corridor, so I wasn’t sure what to expect out of the course itself. The elevation profile was gentle enough, which is really what I was looking for after our hilly fall half marathon.

The weather forecast said clouds, but no rain, which sounded great. When we arrived, it became clear that the clouds were low enough that they were indistinguishable from light, persistent rain. Less great. Parking was easy in the Oaks Park lot and we arrived with plenty of time to wait in line at the portapotties before the start.

The start was crowded, as it had a pretty short “corral” for everyone to gather into and a narrow start/finish line. As usual, we spent the first 5 minutes or so passing people who were perhaps too optimistic about the competitiveness of their starting pace, and then settled into a good rhythm around people running roughly the same speed as us.

As promised, the course was largely very flat. I thought it might be a little dull to run alongside the Willamette, having had some fairly dull runs next to the Columbia on both sides of the river, but the majority of the graffiti (if that’s what it should be called – probably not) was actually Northwest tribal art. This kept me entertained both ways, as I spotted new art on both sides of pillars and walls the whole way through. My favorite was this progression from tribal to realistic salmon.

The turnaround was well-marked and had an aid station for the half marathon folks (and probably us too, though we didn’t partake) so nobody was at risk of missing the turnaround. The way back was more crowded, as we were sharing the course with the 5k folks who started after us, but nothing unmanageable.

The race finishes on a nice, short downhill (you run up it on the way out so you know it’s coming) so we blew past the finish line, grabbed our acoustic guitar shaped finishers medal, and huddled under a tree for a bit to check our times. We both ended up placing in our age groups, but since only the 1st place in each group was to receive an award, we headed out for lunch at Taqueria Las Casitas in Tualatin.

I’d like to be a little more competitive for my next race, so I’m thinking I’ll move up to Hal Higdon’s intermediate plan. I also need to figure out which specific race I’m going to be running, so I can map out my training plan amongst the travel we have coming up this summer, but that’s a problem for another day.

I’ll close this out with a small gallery of some of the art from along the trail. 🙂