Unfreakin' Believable!! I beat my time from last year (4:03:02) and still did not break 4 hours. I missed is by 100 seconds. If I had just run each mile 4 seconds faster I would have made it. O' well I'll get it next year. Before the race my stomach was a little upset, which played an interesting roll in my race that I'll get to later. Before getting bid numbers there were three waviers we had to sign. One for each of the ski resorts that the trails goes through, Deer Valley, Park City, and The Canyons. Some of the wording on the wavier for The Canyons was very funny. It said "I further recognize that The Event offers more challenges than regular Alpine activities in that I may launch off a jump and will attempt to cross a body of water while on skis or a snowboard." I don't remember doing that last year. Unfortunenately they hadn't added these features to the course. If anyone has been considering running this race, I would highly recommend it. They have the nicest prerace bathrooms of any race that I have been to. I'm talking world class restrooms. They actually aren't even called restrooms, the sign on the door said 'Gentlemen's Lounge'. Well, after taking care of business in the Gentlemen's Lounge, I headed outside to do some stretching and warm up. We got started a little after 8:00 a.m. The first mile is on the road to get the field spread out. I think there were about 200 runners this year. I took the first mile a little fast to get a good position on the singletrack. The rest of the course is singletrack with lots of ups and downs. The hills are actually pretty mello compared to the other races I have done this year. My pace for the first couple of miles was faster than I had expected but it felt comfortable so I didn't slow up. About mile 9 I took a chocolate clif shot. At mile 10 there was an aid station and I drank some gatorade. After a half mile my stomach let me know that it did not approve of that combination and I stopped and puked for the very first time during a race. I was a little nervous after puking because the first time I ran this race I got dehydrated. I didn't want that to happen today. After a few minutes I felt fine and drank well at the next aid station. Luckily my stomach approve of everything I comsumed after that. I didn't use any more clif shots after that, instead I used shot bloks. They had both clif shots and shot bloks at each aid station. When we came around a bend on mile 12, I pointed out to the guy who was running by me that we could see the finish from there. It's a mental challenge to see the finish but realize that we're not half way yet. I crossed half way at 1:56, so I was ontrack to break 4, but I also knew that the second half of the course had some difficult sections. Miles 18 thru 20 are challenging. Most of it is runable but there is a lot of uphill and I was going pretty slow. There is a large steep hill on mile 19. On fresh legs this hill would be no problem but after 19 miles it seems like a monster. I had to walk up it, I think most people did. After crossing the high point on the course (around 8500 ft) it got really fun. The downhill singletrack is great. I still had a good amount of energy and was able to go fast on the downhill. The are several switchbacks where you can see how close you are the the next person. Some of the corners on switchbacks were difficult to run fast. On the way down I was moving at a good clip when I caught my toe on a rock or a stump. I thought I was going to go flying into the trees. But after a few scary steps trying to get my feet back under me and not fall on my face, I was upright again. Towards the end there are a few rolling hills that are challenging to run. I knew I was close to 4 hours so I ran the uphills. After coming over the crest of the last hill, I could see the finish again. The time was 3:55. There were still a few switchbacks to get down to the finish and then run around a building and into the chute. I really pushed down those last switchbacks, but it wasn't quite enough. I finished at 4:01:39. I am still happy with this finish. It was a great race and more bloggers need to come a run it next year. Here are my splits
Mile 1: 8:17
Mile 2: 9:37
Mile 3: 9:42
Mile 4: 8:44
Mile 5: 7:55
Mile 6: 8:55
Mile 7: 8:17
Mile 8: 8:37
Mile 9: 9:35
Mile 10: 9:42
Mile 11: 8:56
Mile 12: 8:24
Mile 13: 9:00
Mile 14: 9:41
Mile 15: 11:13
Mile 16: 10:43
Mile 17: 10:20
Mile 18: 13:38
Mile 19: 13:47
Mile 20: 12:10
Mile 21: 9:24
Mile 22: 10:03
Mile 23: 10:46
Mile 24: 8:52
Mile 25: 7:38
The course was about 1 mile short according to my GPS. I'm sorry that this blog is so long, but the race did take me over 4 hours to run.
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