For some reason, I rarely ever compete in races shorter the 26.2 miles. However, over the last couple of years, I have been trying to expand my horizons to experience the joy of running races at various distances. As a result, I woke up early this morning (another thing I usually do not do), did my non-running workout (200 sit-ups and 25 push-ups), and headed up to City Creek Canyon for the annual Half Road/Half Trail 8k (i.e., a Sports-AM race).
Since I was incorporating this race into my larger Saturday workout, I took the bus into town and got off at the Cathedral of the Madeleine and ran up B Street to the road that loops around to the front of City Creek Canyon. The sky was pretty cloudy and menacing when I left home and shortly after I started to ascend through the Avenues, the rain really started to pour. There was really no need for an iPod because the roaring thunder provided the soundtrack. In addition, the wind began to gust so bad that I figured the only way to keep the hood of my windbreak over my head was to just duck my head and run. Of course, if you are over six-and-a-half feet tall it’s a good idea to look up every so often while when you are running; that is, I ran straight into a low hanging branch while trying to plow my way through the wind and the rain up B Street. For anyone that witnessed this collision outside their kitchen window, I’m okay and I’m not completely crazy; that is, just a neophyte runner trying to make to the starting line.
I arrived at the mouth of City Creek Canyon forty minutes before the start and huddled with the other early birds underneath a small tent. Just before the 8:00 am start, there was a break in the rain and wind began to calm down. However, the morning rain resulted in two changes to the race. First, the half-trail part of the race was closed. It was a bummer since I was hoping to gain some trail running experience for my race in September; however, I do not blame the race director for closing off this part of the race for safety purposes (it was absolutely the correct decision). This meant the race was an 8k out and back on the City Creek Canyon road (note: I believe the course was slightly shorter than 4.9 miles because the indirectness of the trail was eliminated). Second, our timing chips were removed because there was a pool of standing water at the start line. These rain-related changes equated to a fast pace, manually timed race.
Almost from the start of the race, this one runner took control and made the course look easy. From my splits (see below), he seemed to be a good 5-10 seconds faster than me per mile. I tried to catch up with him, but he was way too fast. However, as long as he remained in sight, he definitely pushed me along and it was neat to watch him fly back down the canyon after the turnaround. After the race, I found out his PR for the marathon is an amazing 2:27! Wow, this is a whole notha’ level of running!!! In short, I finished in a time of 27:07 and my splits were as follows: 6:29, 6:51, 6:08, 5:18, and 2:21 (this last one was basically a half-mile split).
THE BEST PART: it started to rain again after the race started and the intensity of the down pour just continued to increase through out. When I crossed the finish line, I was completely soaked, but happy to have finished. Since my clothes were waterlogged, it was just fun to standout there as the rain continued to pelt down and cheer on my fellow weekend runners as they fought through the conditions and crossed the finish line. There were many fast times and great achievements on this rainy Saturday morning!
After the post-race festivities, the rain began to let up for good and I dried out by running back home (I ran 14.6 non-racing miles at an easy pace). As I ran down Capital Hill, I had a tremendous view of our great city as the weather began to clear up. Also, I took advantage of the cool weather by running two laps of Liberty Park before heading down 500 East to home. In summary, it was an eventful race and great workout! | 