I hadn’t planned on running WBR this year (translation: I don’t have enough friends to put a team together) but a coworker had a couple of last minute dropouts from his team and asked if I would be interested in running with them. Turns out that this was Cal and Marcie’s team which was a neat coincidence. I was in van 2 but we drove up to the start to pick up the packets and see van 1 start the race at 10:20 a.m. We pulled in right as the 10:20 runners were starting so we really didn’t get to see the runners off. We went to the grocery store to pick up a few things then drove to exchange 6 to wait for our turn to run. It was really hot while we were waiting at the park and I was really concerned because I’m not a very good hot weather runner. After a couple of hours of hanging around the park, van 1 came in right when we were expecting them and we were off.
My first leg was a 3.9 mile run from Pineview reservoir towards Snow Basin. The first 3 miles climbed 900 feet and the last 0.9 miles dropped 350 feet. My plan was just to bear down and plug along for the climb then let it rip once I hit the downhill. I started at 5:10 p.m. and it was very hot. I told the van to meet me at the 2 mile marker for some water. I quickly realized that this was a mistake because I had a dry mouth immediately. Fortunately, the crew also new this was a mistake and was waiting for me at mile 1 and gave me a water bottle. For the first 3 miles I just focused on passing runners ahead of me or counting down until I got to the 3 mile marker where I would hit the downhill. I think that I had a decent effort and was close to puke pace much of the climb. I did hold back a little because I knew I had two more legs to run. Once I hit the peak of the run and started the downhill, I opened up a lot and was able to push the pace coming down. I was surprised at how well my downhill running was. Averaged 5:27 pace for the last 0.9 miles and 7:25/mile for the entire run. I ran the entire leg in 29:18 which was about 20 seconds faster than I planned so I was happy with the results (I passed 18 runners). After runner 12 finished, we drove to East Canyon reservoir and crashed until it was our turn to run again. I didn’t sleep at all but was able to relax for about an hour after eating before it was our turn to run again.
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