AM - Jake and I got a free entry to the 15K for helping out at an aid station in the 10K. Since we are planning on running the XTERRA National Championship in Sept, this seemed like a good idea. What I really enjoy about trail races are that the times/paces are irrevelant, distances are approximate, and they are typically low-key. All three were true in this case. This course has about 600 ft of elevation gain and stays between 6300-7000 ft. After 1.5 mile warmup and some strides, the race began and we were off. Splits were all over the place, from 6:05 to 7:25 min/mile. Definitely some big hills and very windy. For much of the downhill sections there was a switchback every 40 ft or so which made it pretty tough to get any speed at all. The uphills destroyed me a little bit too (I blame that on the altitude). I should probably run more hills in training. I decided that this race would be a pretty awesome mountain biking course, so that's now on the list of things to do.
Overall, the race was exactly as planned - a hard tempo run. It wasn't as fast as a typical tempo I would do, but definitely the same effort level. The best part of the race was wearing my new bright pink Saucony uniform! Got a quick massage after the race and won some Smartwool socks in the raffle. Cooldown for 2 miles. Fun morning! PM - 12 mile bike total. Rode up to the Tour of Utah race. Wow - those cyclists are FAST.
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