Today I paced the Thelma and Louise Half Marathon down in Moab. I paced the 1:50 group with Rachel and I had a complete blast. This race is now in my top 5 destination races. Drove down with Rachel, Rachelle, and Christine on Friday around 4:30 in the afternoon. We arrived in Moab around 8:30 and went and picked up our race goodie bags. We checked into our hotel (Best Western) and went down to Zax Pizza for some dinner. I barely slept at all that night because the room was so dang hot. I had opened the windows, but it was so hot and there were drunks outside making the biggest racket. Nonetheless, 5 am still came early and I rolled out of bed. We drove to the start line (up a canyon). We got out of the car and the scenery was absolutely beautiful. The start/finish area was next to the Colorado river and the backdrop of red rock was stunning. The race had about 800 women racing. After we hit the POPs we found the pacers and took our lovely pace sign toward the front of the crowd. The race started on time and we were off. Rachel and I started off a little slow due to the congestion of slow racers that had lined up at the front. We were off and soon out a little too fast. We were basically pacing one lady named Annie and we really didn't have a group of runners. Annie held strong with us and I personally thought that she was capable of better than a 1:50. The course was an out and back and the first half seemed a little downhill. We were ahead of pace by about a minute and I figured that would buy us time for the second half of the course that would be slightly uphill. The views of the canyon were just out of this world and the race was just so mellow. I have never been in an all ladies race, I LOVED it! Everyone just seemed so relaxed. We picked about another gal named Tami at about the turn around point. Turning around we hit a wall of wind. The headwind just would not break and we ran right into it for the second half. It was pretty constant. Once we were back in the canyon in wasn't as bad. We were always a little bit ahead of pace and that bought us some good time at the aid stations. I think the gals we ran with appreciated the fact that we stopped and took water or Gatorade and encouraged them to do the same. It really did not feel like we were going fast at all, but I kept creeping ahead of the pace and Rachel had to call me back in. Mile 11 we told Tami that she had to break away. Rachel gave her a challenge to run ahead and pass at least 4 girls. We watched her do it and she looked so strong. We were both proud of her to push those last few miles. I liked running with Tami because she had her phone on speaker and she would play her music out loud. The last mile we were still ahead of pace 20-30 seconds. We took it slow and encouraged those runners behind us to pass us up. It was fun to watch a big group in front of us go sub 1:50. We ran in and I saw that I could end exactly on gun time. so I jumped across the finish at 1:50:01... Perfection. My actual time was about 15 seconds ahead of pace. They had an awesome spread of food at the finish. This was a very expensive half ($100), but at least they treated the runners well. I had fun hanging out at the finish listening to the band and seeing other ladies finish. I had to be back in town for a graduation, so I made everyone in the car zip back to the hotel, shower, eat and get on the road. Such a fun time with the running girlfriends. | 