I'm sucker for relays now. Wild West Relay. The relay starts in Fort Collins and ends in Steamboat Springs. Fantastic course, fantastic organization. Highly recommended. I ran Legs 4, 16, and 28. I ran on the "No Small Feet" team again, who I met and ran with for the Wasatch Back Relay a couple months earlier. What I love about running is the people that you meet and friends that you establish.
12:20PM - Leg 4, 5.5 mile. This leg was outside of Ft. Collins and was pretty flat and easy. However, it was in the heat of the day. Also, I missed a turn and ran an extra mile, which is embarassing because I made the course map. Zoned out I guess. Fortunately the van found me and picked me up and brought me back to where I went off the course (a legal relay manuever). I ended up with a time of 35:55, 6:31 pace for the official leg, but 5:30 pace for the actually mileage I ran. I'm pretty happy with that for the heat. However, I cost my team 12 minutes, and felt really bad about that. I told them I would make it up my next leg. Ave HR 179
7:35PM - Leg 16, 10.6 miles. I wore my GPS this leg in order to ensure not getting lost and get mile splits. This part of the race is at high elevation, and my leg started at 9000' and dropped to 7900' by mile 8, and was rolling for the last 3 miles. I took mile splits with my GPS:
9:50/175 - 2-mile (4:55 pace). Steep downhill
5:25/179 - feeling great!
5:24/178
5:33/184
5:52/183 - road is flattening out, loosing speed, but still feel good
5:48/184 - starting to get dark
5:52/184
6:29/186 - uphill segment
6:29/186 - long mile, according to GPS and my body
Great leg! I made up my lost time from Leg 4. Felt really good. Total time 56:40; ave HR 181 | 