Saturday, July 2, 2011

Fight For Air Half Marathon

Tucker and I were planning on running a half at the end of June, but due to the twins soccer schedule, we needed to reschedule. Rather than finding a race in July, we thought we could bump it up to the first weekend in June so that we wouldn't have to train while we were on vacation...that may have been a mistake. The other mistake was not realizing what kind of course this new race would entail. All I saw was that the race started on Wasatch Blvd. near 6200 South and ended in Sugarhouse Park-sweet, a downhill race...right? Wrong!
It is crazy to run Wasatch and see it in a whole new light after driving that same stretch of road a billion times before. It was pretty hilly and I was not expecting that. Oh well, we got through it and we were keeping a good pace. We ran right past my old junior high, Churchill, and over the overpass. The course weaved through the neighborhood and then past my high school, Skyline. Oh the memories. However, I wasn't thinking about all of my great memories at that point. No, I was thinking about the hill I was about to climb getting back onto Wasatch and taking it all the way to 33rd south. Yuck! Fortunately, after getting some much needed water at Eastwood Elementary, we started to go down and down and down. We ran along the Parley's trail and it felt great to have such a break. My knees started to really feel it, but I wanted to push it to make up for some lost time. We had another huge hill right before Tanner Park and I was thinking, "Are you kidding me?!" But again, we made it just fine and headed for Sugarhouse. I ran out of gas around mile 10.5, but knew we were almost to the park which gave me a needed boost. The boost quickly ran out, however, when we had to make a second go-around of the park. I was kind of pissed at that point. We could see the finish line but instead of running the last few yards, we had to run up another hill to start the park path again. AAAAHHHH! The race wasn't managed well at all with late honey buckets (pretty important to have pre-race!), only 4 aid stations (with the last one at mile 10), nothing other than water available at the aid stations, no mile markers for miles 9, 11, or 12, and green bananas at the finish line. Lame!
Thank goodness Tucker stuck with me and kept me going. I was so grateful for him and I doubt I would have finished as quickly had he not been there. We didn't have a great time, 2 hours and 5 minutes-my slowest race yet, but it felt great to have finished such a difficult race. Too, I loved the camaraderie among the racers. The fact that we could all laugh at our crazy bus driver and the dysfunction of the race as a whole made it that much more fun. It's exciting, intense, freeing, and motivating to be apart of a racing event and I can't wait to race again!
By the way, the South Valley Half is coming up in August...any takers?

1 comment:

ashley g. said...

Your race recap cracks me up... "I was pretty much pissed at that point..."

I love those. Way to conquer the Beast! I'm proud of you both for getting such a great time on such a tough course!!