Great day and I had a great time running... right up to mile 22.
This is a beautiful course. I enjoyed the pre-race time talking to Cody Draper and a few other friends. I met Aaron Kennard and instantly coveted his long legs. I then took my place at the back. The initial climb got my heart pumping and I was following my plan and feeling good. I ran the 33k in 2009, so the 55k loop was new to me. I kept thinking 'This is great.' I was really having fun.
Mile 18 had a cut-off time of 12:30 PM and I knew it would be close for me. I passed through Aid Station #3, just pausing to fill my bottle. At the cut-off, my Garmin read 4:33, but nobody was there and we were told in the pre-race that if we missed the cut-off time, someone would tell you to head back to the starting line. I just figured that we had started a few minutes early so I kept going. I hit the Gold Bar Trail and followed the slickrock markings up to Aid Station #4. I remembered this section and was again enjoying the race. I knew there were a few more challenging miles beyond AS#4, but I figured I had 4 hours left. No problem.
Another runner just got to the aid station before me and we were told by the volunteers that the sweepers were already through and they were closing and had just poured out all their water. If we continued, we would have no markings or anything to drink (they did have 3 cans of Coke). I knew how tough the rest of the trail was to follow even with the course flags.
This caused absolute frustration. As a back-of-the-pack runner, finishing is very important to me. To have to stop with only 12 miles to go and four hours to do it in made me a bit mad. I really felt good and wanted to finish. I knew it was not the volunteers fault and they were quite empathetic. After voicing my disappointment, I thanked them for helping at the race. Then I had the most gut-wrenching, bone-jarring and thrilling ride with one of the volunteers (Jeff) back down the slickrock.
I drove my car to the finishline and expressed my frustration to the race director. He said the person at the cut-off must have left the area to call him. They had been experiencing communication problems all day. He offered me a free entry into next years race, so that was a bit of consolation.
I love this course and really enjoyed my own personal Red Hot 35k.
Next up: Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50k - March 26th! | 