Run Hard, Be Safe, Have Fun

The forecasts have been steady, and they're all pretty similar. That means we can have good confidence in the conditions we'll be racing in tomorrow morning.

We start under cloudy skies, maybe a brief peek of sun here and there, maybe not, and the temperature in the low 40s. There's a breeze out of the south—that's into our faces for most of the first five miles, but it's a very light breeze and we're all nervous, fresh, excited … we don't even notice it.

As the race wears on, the trend is for more sun. None of the forecasts offer a full-blown, rockin,' 100 percent, money-back, solar bath guarantee; just less cloudiness. The temperature crawls slowly upward; under-three-hour marathoners might do their entire race in the 40s, but even those running for four or five hours won't see anything more than mid 50s.

As for the wind, well, this is always a difficult forecast to make with precision. That said, the consensus is that the wind will slowly ramp up as the morning proceeds—from around 3 mph at the start to 6-8 mph by late morning. It's a generally south wind—that is, from the south, blowing north—though there are hints here and there it might turn a little more south-southwest (blowing north-northeast). Remember, we run miles 21 to 23 directly south and 23 to 25.5 southeast, then go south again to the finish. Depending upon how you're faring, late in the game it might be enough of a wind to prompt a bit of muttering at Mother Nature's caprice. Then again, if you ran CIM last December those were steady 10+ mph winds with gusts over 20. It won't be that bad (nor as cold).

So that's it, kids. All in all, we should count ourselves quite fortunate. It's been pretty dreary in Oregon this spring—here in Portland we saw rain on 25 out of the 30 days in April. We're getting a good one.

Nothing left now except the running.

Race Forecasts (as of Saturday Morning)

National Weather Service
Tonight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 38. West northwest wind between 6 and 9 mph becoming calm.
Sunday: Partly sunny, with a high near 65. South wind between 6 and 8 mph.

Accuweather
7am: Partly sunny, 44, Wind S @ 4 mph, 92% humidity
8am: Partly sunny, 45, Wind SSE @ 3 mph, 89% humidity
9am: Partly sunny, 47, Wind S @ 5 mph, 85% humidity
10am: Partly sunny, 49, Wind S @ 6 mph, 79% humidity
11am: Partly sunny, 52, Wind S @ 7 mph, 74% humidity

Weather.com
7am: Cloudy, 44, Wind S @ 4mph, 65% humidity
8am: Cloudy, 45, S @ 5mph, 60% humidity
9am: Cloudy, 48, S @ 6mph, 58% humidity
10am: Mostly cloudy, 51, Wind SSW @ 6mph, 61% humidity
11am: Mostly cloudy, 54, SSW @ 6mph, 61% humidity

All Good

Up here in Portland, what was looking, three or four days ago, to be a significant stretch of glorious spring with sunshine from Saturday through Wednesday has shrunk to almost nothing, nothing but the same old same old. Only Sunday remains free of rain. Didn't I mention the way that happens with our forecasts? The Amazing Disappearing Lovely Outlook. A similar phenomenon occurs in the winter, but then it generally works like this: Breathless forecasts of copious snow disintegrate into a dull, cold reality of scattered flakes in the hills and rain on the valley floor.

Anyway, Eugene's location 110 miles south is keeping the window of benign weather open a little longer and there seems no doubt it will be PRETTY DARN NICE WEATHER FOR THE RACE ON SUNDAY. Did you hear that? Pretty darn nice weather for the race on Sunday. Quoting the National Weather Service:

Sunday: Partly sunny, with a high near 66. Calm wind becoming north northwest around 6 mph.

UPDATE: Going Hourly
Hourlies for Race Day from many of the commercial services are now available. Roundup of the 7 a.m. Sunday forecasts immediately below. Note that Weather.com and Intellicast appear to be reading from the same playbook.

Weather.com
Mostly cloudy, 43, 20% chance rain, 86% humidity, winds S @ 3 mph

Accuweather
Partly sunny, 41, 88% humidity, winds S @ 5 mph

Intellicast
Mostly cloudy, 43, 20% chance rain, 86% humidity, winds S @ 3 mph

Stupid Accuweather Less Stupid Now

The Accuweather forecasters, who had been predicting a rare Oregon hurricane—an inland one, at that!—for Sunday in Eugene, are coming to their senses. They've ditched the forecast of 17 mph winds with gusts of 35 mph. Now they're saying 11 mph winds with gusts of 20 mph. That's still a very windy day, but I have a feeling this walk back has just begun.

UPDATE: National Weather Service forecast discussion this morning is looking good:

ON SAT...BOTH GFS AND ECWMF CONTINUE TO SHOW WARM FRONT LIFTING ACROSS THE REGION. EVEN THOUGH BEST THREAT OF SHOWERS/RAIN IS OVER W WASHINGTON AND BRIT COL...FEEL WILL HAVE TO KEEP CHANCE OF SHOWERS OVER NW OREGON MAINLY N OF A NEWPORT TO SALEM TO MT JEFFERSON LINE. THEN APPEARS WILL HAVE HIGH PRES RIDGE BUILDING OVER THE REGION SUN INTO MON...WITH DRIER AND MILDER WEATHER.

New Shoes! Back Recovery! Wind?

My new Asics Hyper Speed 4s arrived today. They don't look a lot different than the 3s I wore at Berlin and Sacramento. The old shoes were beaten to a pulp, and the new ones felt pretty plush when I took them out for a 40-minute spin today—especially for what are essentially racing flats. They'll have maybe 15 miles on them for Sunday's race, which is just fine for such flexible, lightweight shoes. It's the big clunkers you've got to break in for a few weeks.

What else? Oh, that career-ending back injury I suffered yesterday shaking a carton of unsweetened whole-grain beverage (it's darn refreshing stuff, but where's the warning label?) is doing much better. I took a couple of ibuprofen soon after I was stricken, and that helped quiet the spasms, which were centered between the shoulder blades at their most southerly reach. The pills—I pretty much never take pain medication—also left me woozy, out of sorts. It sucks to be out of sorts. Sure, you can get sorts at any filling-station food mart, sorts and a microwaved breakfast burrito, 24/7, but that's cheap sorts from China and I don't go near that shit.

By bedtime the pain was a dull ache that had migrated toward my neck. Slept well. Woke up stiff. My back, geez you people are terrible. But gradually, through the course of today, I've felt better, unless I sit at the keyboard too long writing stupid Race Day Outlook updates.

Oh, yeah, the race day outlook.

I noted in this morning's quick hit that the forecasts were coalescing, and no bombs have been thrown today to blow up the process. We begin to transition out of this week's cool, rainy weather late tomorrow. There's a little talk of a weak system riding over the building ridge early Saturday, but not much is expected of it, and anyway it's gone by late in the day. Sunday is nice. Sunday is Race Day. Sunday is nice. Got it?

The roundup is below but first, about that wind that's keeping Sam McManis up at night: Accuweather is hanging in there with crazy-windy conditions for Sunday. The National Weather Service in its graphical forecasts has things slightly breezy, but in the neighborhood of 5-10 mph on Sunday morning. My buddy Dan wonders if Accuweather is plugging in the wind forecast for 850 millibars, which is, like, a mile above the ground. They've might have their head in the clouds, you could say.

National Weather Service
Overnight low: 40
Afternoon high: 63
Precip: 0
Conditions: Mostly sunny
Winds: E @ 5 mph early, then NW @ 5-10 mph

Weather.com
Overnight low: 43
Afternoon high: 64
Precip: 20 percent chance
Conditions: Partly cloudy
Wind: NNW @ 12 mph

Stupid Accuweather
Overnight low: 38
Afternoon high: 60
Precip: 0
Conditions: Mostly sunny and breezy
Wind: N @ 17 mph, gusts to 34 mph

Intellicast
Overnight low: 43
Afternoon high: 64
Precip: 20 percent chance
Conditions: Partly cloudy

Dry, Cool Morning, Probably Breezy

Quick hit for you nervous Nellies checking in early as well as any EDT and CDT denizens making the big trek out to Track Town USA in a couple of days.... Models appear to be coming into agreement on our race weather: Dry, breezy, temps in the low 40s to start and into the 50s by the end, depending, of course, upon the great unknowable: the precise moment you arrive on the hallowed all-weather surface of legendary Hayward Field and put your stamp on running history.

All Over the Map

The National Weather Service forecast for Sunday, May 2, in Eugene is for a morning low of 42, followed by “mostly sunny” skies and a high “near 68.”

KPTV's Mark Nelsen doesn’t do a text seven-day. The picture is of a sun with a few clouds in front of it. “Scattered clouds,” let’s call it. Morning low 45, afternoon high 62. That’s for Portland/Vancouver, 110 miles north of Eugene.

Accuweather cools things way down from earlier forecasts, calling for a morning low of 39 and an afternoon high of 58, with “partly sunny and breezy” conditions. Yes, they are sticking with their crazy-wind position: N @ 18 mph, gusts to 32 mph.

Weather.com starts with a low of 42, climbing to 59 under “mostly cloudy” skies. Chance of precip is 20 percent and winds are predicted to be from the northwest at 11 mph.

Intellicast sees a “chance of showers” on Race Day—a 40 percent chance, to be precise. Morning low is a relatively balmy 47. High is 62. Their winds come from the southwest at 11 mph.

Right Now

Steady rain, temperature 48 degrees out there at 7 a.m this morning in Portland. Eugene reporting 47 and rain. Let's be glad this isn't Race Day.

Late-Night Model-Shift Trend Alert

KPTV's Mark Nelsen blogged tonight about the coming weekend. Speaking about two frequently cited computer models that have been offering vastly different solutions for the weeend, he noted that the one that had been calling for a sunny, warm weekend in Western Oregon is now shifting to a less-happy outcome. Dang.

Still a huge difference in the GFS and ECMWF for Saturday and beyond, although things seem to be coming a bit closer together this evening. The GFS built a big ridge in the east Pacific and then flopped it over us starting on Sunday. The ECMWF through 12z this morning showed a vigorous and cold trough dropping in, smashing right through the ridge Sunday and beyond…totally different solutions. I see the GFS is definitely showing some retrograde action the last few runs, so apparently today was a good day to back off that crazy forecast of 70+ starting Sunday.

How's Your Taper Going?

We made it to 65 yesterday, three degrees of the Fahrenheit variety under the forecasts put out in the morning, about 10 degrees off earlier forecasts. I haven't compiled any data—I'm not that kooky—but I see this happen often in Oregon in the spring: Glorious forecasts sort of fall apart as the target approaches. Not that yesterday turned out to be a cruddy day. It was nice, and I got in my 10 miles—four easy, two at marathon pace (6:52/mile; we'll see about that) and four easy. At the risk of planting the kiss of death on my pouty, ruby-red hopes, I will say I felt great, especially given that just two days earlier I'd knocked off some killer Yasso 800s.

The Eugene outlook? Yeah, in a second. But first—as a bit of a disclaimer, I suppose, since it might impact your perception of my credibility as a purveyor of weather geekery—I must reveal a startling truth: I don't watch any of the local TV weather forecasters. It's pretty simple, actually. I don't watch local TV news, period. The thing is—and I say this not to boast—I have an IQ above 75. Ipso facto, local news is unbearably stupid to me. (Eesh, that's harsh. In fact, I'm sure there are many hard-working, well-intentioned people toiling in the news departments around town. And I'm sure that in the rare instances when they are given the opportunity, they do excellent work. And no doubt they respond forcefully to breaking, emergency situations. But all the fluff, the crap, the commercials ... sorry, not for me.)

I do, however, ply the Internets to follow the prognostications of Mark Nelsen, a lifelong local who uses his knowledge and experience to take the data spewed out by the various computer models, stuff every forecaster has access to, and present his followers a more nuanced and almost always more accurate sense of what weather will unfold. Right now, Mark's seven-day forecast has "warmer & dry" for the weekend, with a high of 70 on Sunday. That's for the Portland/Vancouver area, where most of Mark's audience lives. It's a nice sign that the trend is in our favor, but what about Eugene itself? Well, I checked out the site for the CBS affiliate down there, and as of this afternoon (Monday afternoon, I must emphasize) their seven-day runs from last Saturday through this Friday. Nice. Then I clicked on what was advertised as a video presentation of the forecast. This nearly three-plus minute snippet in fact featured two almost endearingly bumbling studio yakkers standing in front of the camera presenting celebrity birthdays. "Local celebrities" included.

Onward.

Accuweather sees partly sunny skies (morning low 42, afternoon high 63) and breezy conditions on Race Day. Really breezy—north winds of 16 mph and gusts of 31. I've not run the course, but a look at the map suggests around eight miles of serious headwinds if this comes to pass. The course heads almost directly north from mile 5 to mile 8 and again for most of mile 9. At mile 17 we go northwest, gradually turning directly north for miles 19 to 21. The rest of the way to the finish would be, under the Accuweather scenario, substantially aided by the winds. As I said yesterday, wind predications are very dicey, but this is such an emphatic wind forecast it certainly bears watching.

My unfavorite weather site, Weather.com, meanwhile, serves up this hash for Eugene, May 2: Partly cloudy, 20 percent chance of precip, high 65, low 40, winds from the north at 10.

Just a Week to Go, Kids

Pretty nice in Stumptown today, as filtered sunshine warms things up. Not as nice as they had been forecasting, mind you. Forgotten are the hosanna-eliciting predictions of mid-70s; maybe 68? We'll take it. I imagine it's not very different at the other end of the Willamette Valley—110 miles down the road—in Eugene.

I'm feeling good that my last pre-Eugene run of any length, an easy 10-miler, is scheduled for this afternoon. That's because tomorrow things go to hell for a while, with the forecast calling for showers and 50s for much of the week. When exactly this "troughiness," as the weather geeks call it, will end—and what it will leave in its wake—appears to be the developing theme for the 2010 Eugene Marathon weather watch. And the news continues to look pretty good on that front ("front" ... hee-hee). The fellas in the National Weather Service office here, whose forecast area includes Eugene, say in their discussion this morning:

POST FRONTAL AIR MASS AND SWIFT MOVING SHORTWAVES WILL KEEP AN ACTIVE THREAT OF SHOWERS THROUGH EARLY FRIDAY...ESPECIALLY OVER OROGRAPHICALLY ENHANCED AREAS. BEGINNING FRIDAY NIGHT A RIDGE IS SHOWN TO BEGIN INFLUENCING THE FORECAST AREA THROUGH THE WEEKEND...THOUGH DETAILS VARY. HAVE KEPT A DRYING TREND TOWARD THE END OF THE WEEK.

A ridge is what we want. We spell ridge "D-R-Y."

As for Accuweather, their "sunshine with patchy clouds" for Eugene on Sunday, May 2, has morphed into "considerable cloudiness." Forecast high and low are unchanged, at 66 and 37, respectively. No rain is expected, but north winds of 8 mph gusting to 23 mph are noted. (Don't worry too much about that yet; because winds vary so greatly from hour to hour, a useful forecast for marathon morning won't be had until we're within 48 hours of the race—perhaps not even until the night before.)

Finally, over at Weather.com, the 10-day—which toward the outer end seems to be based largely on climatology—envisions "partly cloudy" conditions with a high of 65 and a low of 45. Chance of rain is 20 percent, but this time of year they almost never take some small chance of rain out of the extended forecast.

Trend Watch

Not to belabor the point that Oregon forecasts are shifty buggers, but yesterday morning the Monday forecast for the Willamette Valley was sunny with temps in the mid-70s. Now they're saying rain likely with temps in the 50s, maybe hitting 60. Talk about your forecast whiplash.

That said, eight days out we are seeing an encouraging turn in the outlook for May 2. The chilly, damp weather expected to prevail in Western Oregon next week might just be up and out of here by race weekend. Accuweather has "mainly cloudy and warmer" with a high/low of 63/34 for Saturday, then "sunshine with patchy clouds" and 66/37 for Sunday.

The National Weather Service forecast discussion out of Portland reflects this happy hope, noting differing computer-model projections but adding: SOME SIMILARITIES REMAIN IN THAT THE MAIN TROUGH EITHER DIGS S OR SHIFTS E...BOTH OF WHICH WOULD SUGGEST LOWERING CHANCES FOR SHOWERS THE END OF THE WEEK.

(By the way, the all-caps treatment is theirs. Weather Service guys like to shout when they discuss, and who am I to tell them to quiet down?)

First Forecast

A 10-day forecast is as meaningful as your kid's promise that he'll clean his room "later." Very little confidence is in order. However, in as much as anxiety-cum-irrationality undergirds this itinerant blog, shouldn't the 10-day forecast be right up our alley? Our cup of tea? Our thang? Yep, I say we peer into the narrow, dark tunnel that is the long-term forecast and attach real meaning to it. Accuweather is our co-conspirator in this crime against sober analysis.

Accuweather, Sunday, May 2, Eugene, OR: "Mostly cloudy with a passing shower."

Now if I paid for Accuweather's premium service I could tell you exactly what time that crazy-ass shower would pass through the southern end of the Willamette Valley, whether it would be at 5 a.m. as you nibble at that bagel and sip that coffee and hope the digestive functions don't go all mal on you, or whether it will be at 2 p.m. as you drive home, feeling really good (that you didn't tell anyone your race goal) or whether it's going to rain on you during the freaking race.

Sorry, don't have that information.

What we do know—and this is for real—is that after a little rain passes through Oregon tonight and tomorrow morning we're going to enjoy two great days of spring, with temps into the 70s (and trust me, no people anywhere enjoy great spring weather more than Oregonians). Then on Tuesday things turn sour and get cool and off-and-on showery for a while. Temperatures mostly in the 50s, maybe some low 60s. No big gully-washing storms, just clouds and broken sun and a little rain and more clouds ... days with 0.03 or maybe 0.11 inches of rain ... a very typical Oregon springtime pattern. Right now the forecasters see this pattern carrying into our race weekend, but that really doesn't tell us what Sunday, May 2, will bring to Eugene, and, anyway, it's scarcely more than a guess. Sigh.

The good news is, each day we learn a little more and the confidence level goes up. Eventually that room will be cleaned.

T-Minus 10 Days

We're back!

Man, how the months have flown by. We were on the fall/winter cusp as we pondered the possibilities for CIM race morning. What an interesting day that turned out to be—hardly frightful, but definitely not without challenges. The below-freezing chill at the start wasn't unusual, but the molasses-like climb of the mercury—it was barely nudging 40F when I finished—kept us on our toes. Or kept our toes numb. Worse was the wind, gusting well over 15 mph on those long southbound stretches. Then again, the rain held off until later in the day, so all in all not that bad.

Onto Eugene.

Let's start with a little climatology....

May 2 Historical Averages for Eugene

High: 64
Low: 41
Rainfall: 0.10 inches

So it's generally mild, maybe a little wet. But let's dig deeper. This will be the fourth Eugene Marathon. What have conditions been for the previous three?

Race Day in Eugene

2009 (May 3)
Temperature
7 a.m.: 48
10 a.m.: 52
Sky
7 a.m.: Light rain
10 a.m.: Overcast
Wind
7 a.m.: Calm
10 a.m.: 4 mph WSW
Rainfall
7 a.m. - noon: 0.04 inches

2008 (May 4)
Temperature
7 a.m.: 40
10 a.m.: 49
Sky
7 a.m.: Clear
10 a.m.: Overcast
Wind
7 a.m.: 6 mph NNE
10 a.m.: 12 mph NNE
Rainfall
7 a.m. - noon: 0

2007 (April 29)
Temperature
7 a.m.: 44
10 a.m.: 53
Sky
7 a.m.: Clear
10 a.m.: Scattered clouds
Wind
7 a.m.: Calm
10 a.m.: 6 mph N
Rainfall
7 a.m. - noon: 0