OK...so when you first see the race report you may have a question or 2. Let me start how I normally do....It was 64 degrees when I left the house. It was, however, a few minutes before midnight. I was able to sleep for 3 hours from 8-11pm. We met at Lowell's house and put our stuff in the support car. We left at 12:23am. There were 6 of us running: Myself, Lowell, Terry, Barry, Holly, and Suzette. Lowell convinced his awesome wife to drive our support vehicle for our "midnight moonlight" run. We ran up Buckskin to the marathon start area. This was about 7.5 miles with an elevation gain of about 1300 feet. We ran the first 3 miles of the course but headed left instead of turning on Hoot Owl road like the marathon runs. We then ran up another big hill and came down the other side to the McNabb area. By the time we hit the top it was 45 degrees with a breeze. Several people put on another shirt but I was just fine in my sleeveless shirt because I did have gloves on. We then re-joined the marathon course after we had covered about 15 miles. We ran down in to Inkom and around, following the course. While we were running towards the gap, it started to get light. Terry stopped running after 26 miles and drove the support car the rest of the way. He is still recovering from his pacemaker install a couple months back so I was glad he stopped at that time. Most of the group wanted to eat breakfast at Elmer's at 7:00ish before tackling the fun run but they were not going to make the 34+ miles in time to do that. I knew there was no way my stomach could handle eating breakfast and then running 30 minutes later. The rest of the group decided to cut the run short at 30 miles and ride in to the restaurant. I told them I would run it in to the restaurant and grab my bag of stuff when I got there. I bumped in to Josie and she ran mile 33 with me on the South end of town. She was out running her daily run. When I got to the restaurant I had 34.58 miles. I grabbed my bag and ran/walked to the start of the 10K at Bonneville Park. By the time I got to the starting line I had 35.82 miles and a little more than a half hour to stiffen up nicely before the 10K. When the gun went off I shuffled in to a run and my goal was to just keep it under an hour. I finished in 55:13 and I have never been so happy to see a 10K finish line. This will count as my 10K PR after a 35+ mile warm up. I hung around for the prize drawings (I didn't win anything) and caught my pre-arranged ride home with Doug Lenio. Barry was the only other one to run the full 10K, so he got 36.2 miles for the day which is a new daily mileage record for him. Lowell and Holly walked the 5K. Terry and Suzette did not register for the fun run. To sum it up, I had a GREAT time running with the group and uphill climbs aren't as bad when your only light is the moon. I covered a total of 42.02 miles before 9:00am this morning.
| 