Race #2 of the Triple Trail Challenge. The Mid Mountain Marathon is all that stands between me and my TT fleece jacket! Anyway, I am extremely happy with this race. I thought that I would run between 1:57-2:00, so sub 1:55 is just awesome. It's only about one minute slower than I ran at Striders in April on a much easier course when I was running consistently more miles per week. My training has been pathetic since Ogden so I'm somewhat surprised at some of the races I've had recently. My husband ran this with me and it was nice to have someone to run with. The course is basically an out and back, climbing gradually on the way out. My goal was to run an even effort that kept my breathing controlled, whatever pace that happened to be. My first mile was way too fast, but I quickly settled in to a more sustainable pace. There was a women who I will call "heavy mouth breather" who kept cutting me off. I was getting so annoyed. She would speed up, pass me, then slow way down. Then when I would start to go around her again, she would cut over, basically forcing me to chop my stride and pass on the other side. This went on for most of the first half of the race. I was finally able to drop her on the climb to the turn around. Normally, I am only concerned with racing the clock, but I just had to beat this woman today. Nate had stopped for a bathroom break around mile 9, so I was on my own for awhile. The fear of heavy mouth breather passing me motivated me to pick up the pace a bit. Nate caught back up to me after mile 11 and told me that she was coming fast. Crap. Just like the killer in the horror movies that keeps coming back to life, this woman wouldn't quit. So I picked it up even more. Before I knew it, the finish line was in sight. After I finished, I turned to look for heavy mouth breather and she was nowhere in sight! Nate had lied to me to get me to run harder and it worked! Darn husband! | 