Another long race report from me, but this was such a new experience for me, I gotta write it out.
We were heading down to Moab to go Jeeping and camping for four days and I found out driving down that the USATF Half Marathon National Trail Championships were Saturday morning in our campground, Kane’s Creek. I felt fairly good after the R2R2R last week so Saturday morning we got up and walked over to the start. Praise to race directors that start at 9am! The director gave me an entry and we signed the kids up for volunteering. This couldn’t be harder than that Bear Lake Monster Half I did a few weeks ago, right? I survived that. Wrong.
I was surprised to see several teams, Xterra, etc, and some very serious trail runners warming up. This wasn’t going to be some little city half marathon. Looking at the course map I saw that it was up Pritchett Canyon which we would be Jeeping up that afternoon. A serious rockfest climb for 4X4s. The kids were already busy filling up water jugs for the aid stations so I went for a short run. In the start corral I saw a few faces that I recognized, Jared Scott, an amazing trail runner with numerous championships under his belt and Joseph Gray on the US Mountain Team who won Worlds and Xterra Worlds. Two women who looked familiar and who's names I got after the race were Stevie Kremer of Solomon Running, the Skyrunner 2013 Champion and Melody Fairchild, a name from the past, once thought to be the best high school runner of all time. I ended up trading places with these two for most of the race. They totally kicked my butt through the river at the end. Albert Wint also came up and said Hi. They started in seven minute waves with the competitive USATF wave first.
The start was crazy, fast, with guys elbowing and pushing for position. One guy actually pushed me off the road after about 200 yards. ?? We hit the canyon and were immediately in deep sand. The Jeep trail was about four wide and soon changed to a boulder climb. Lots of aggressive jockeying for position. Albert caught up to me and I commented on the crazy start. He says what the heck, don’t they know this is a half marathon? The trail was soon going up the rock climbs with two and four foot ledges that you had to stop and hand climb up. People were moving fast though, and it was obvious this was not your typical running crowd. The guy in front of me went down and one woman was taking an upper ledge above us. On the rim we hit a dirt road about mile 5 and I was finally able to pick up speed. I got in two 6 minute miles in the dirt and sand and managed to pass about 6 or seven runners including those two women. I caught back up to Albert too. By 8 miles we were in single track and it was rocky, narrow, and fun! Now I realized why the runners had started for position like they had. It was nearly impossible to pass. I soon got stuck behind a group. I swung out on the side of the trail hopping over sagebrush and immediately bit it, cutting my knee. I got back on the singletrack and then noticed Albert above us on a cliff ledge, having taken a wrong track and climbing back down. We started down now and I was trying to find a way to get around runners to let it out on the downhill. One guy yelled over his shoulder to let him know when I wanted to pass and he hopped over and let me go. That was neat. The rest simply held position. Now I took a wrong turn at the canyon bottom and a runner actually stopped his race to yell up at me to come back down. It was a class move, and saved my race.
We came into Kane’s Canyon and entered the river bottom. I was surprised to see the trail take Kane’s Creek since it was a river that had a small trail along it during the dry season. It was full and the orange marker posts were in the river. I plunged in and hit waist deep immediately but plowed on sure that this was a short section. A guy passed me above the markers running in the reeds to the side of the river. The trail continued down the river, every now and then going up the bank and then back in, and seemed laid out solely for the difficulty. I was passed again by two guys hauling through the water, couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t even feel my legs. Both women mentioned above passed me through here too. It didn't even slow them down.
First trail race for me and I learned a lot. The aggressiveness was surprising. Also how critical positioning was in the moments when you were not on single track. Single track is a real equalizer. Last, the runners competing in these trail races are strong! A totally different runner, way ahead of my current abilities. Way fun and for sure I’m going to look ahead for the next trail race to do.
The kids loved it today, running wave starts, filling aid station bottles, helping runners with problems, handing out medals and finisher mugs. The directors must have thanked me for their help a dozen times as they helped through the wave finishes. They worked non-stop for two and a half hours.
We had to leave to get going with others on the trail, and they were still working on results because the had to separate normal racers from National competitors, but it looked like I was about 30 overall, 3rd Master on the prelim.
   
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