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