I am finally writing my report!! This half was great! The course was extremely challenging. It was a loop-but we had 1,350 ft worth of climbing. Half of the course was on road and half was in the sand/dirt/sandstone/desert... (Basically an atv trail in the sand with crazy hills..) I thought I was going to hate this course-but it was actually fun to do something different.. I liked the challenge of it and I can honestly say I never got bored weaving in the sand trying to find the best route-and most packed dirt to run on... (on some occasions we were running in thick sand-like beach sand) Anyway, it wasn't easy-but fun... I knew that I would just throw a good time out the window and run by feel, and that is what I did.
My goal today was to run strong and have fun... When I got to the race there were about 300 runners-but that was counting the runners in the 5k and 10k too. (our race had 69 runners-so very low key) The race started and it was a cold 40 degrees. I knew I would warm up though. One or two guys were with me the first two miles-but then they veered off the course-(they were doing the 5k and 10k). After 1.75 miles of climbing on the asphalt-we were finally in the dirt. The first mile in the dirt was extremely downhill-so downhill at one point I had to almost slow to a walk to not fall. I looked behind and noticed a guy gaining on me.. The next mile was mostly flat and around mile 3-4 I went off on the wrong trail for about 100 yards or so and the guy caught me. Bummer!! I realized my mistake and quickly got on the right trail. This guy and me stayed together for the next mile or two... (We were playing leap frog..)It would crack me up bc he would kill it up the hills and pass me and then I would totally pass him on the down hills. (There were several hills that were steep straight up, then straight down) After about a mile or two of us running together I finally passed him and he never came back. After all the climbing in the dirt I finally made it back to black top and downhill around mile 9. Thank goodness. At this point I was still feeling very strong, and it was nice to have my family cheering me on every mile or so. I stayed relaxed and just had fun the rest of the race.. I finished with a time of 1:37:16, (7:16 avg pace) but showed the course as being 13.36 not 13.1 (partly due to my missed turn) The next guy in was about a minute behind.. Anyway, it was a challenging race-but very fun, and I was happy with my time considering the hills and terrain. I felt great the whole time and that is all I can ask for.. (I decided I may do more training runs in the sand-for the challenge of doing them and they may make me stronger) It is always fun running somewhere different too!
Splits were 7:12,7:07,7:24,7:39,9:12,7:41,7:15,7:09,6:33,7:19,7:18,6:38,6:43, last .36 at 5:57 pace...
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