First off, can you say PERSONAL RECORD?! Haha, I managed to run a 2:07:22 in this race! That's three minutes faster than my previous time. I was ecstatic crossing the finish line.
So I signed up for this race back in the summer, I can't even remember when it was. But I saw an ad for it on Facebook, saw it was the first year of the race, and the real clincher was the elevation loss. I am one of those weird runners that loves downhill running! Something about just letting loose and running as fast as I can down a hill without using a lot of energy just makes me happy.
After Top of Zion relay, I planned on a taking a little bit of time off of running. i was feeling a little burned out, since that was my third race since April, and I knew if I kept running when I wasn't necessarily enjoying it was a bad idea. That's how I know I'm getting burnt out, when I find myself forcing myself to run or not being able to even run a full mile without wanting to quit. So that's how I was feeling towards the end of June. July I ran a bit, but not much. August, I don't think I ran at all!! I went home to Arizona for about two weeks and I think I ran about a mile at the gym, but that was it. So then I come back to Utah, feeling refreshed and no longer burnt out, but faced with the fact that I had barely ran for a month and I had a challenging race in four weeks. I took it easy the first week (school started, things were a little crazy) but I knew I had to step it up. Over the next three weeks I ran some good quality runs, but I only ended up running an 8.5 mile long run the week before the race. I was okay with the fact that that was the farthest I had gone, as I knew gravity would take care of the rest.
Friday night before the race, I drove up to Sandy to stay at Shantelle's house, which was minutes from the place where the buses would pick us up. I got a jolly good 3 hours of sleep that night, nothing too unusual before a race :) ha ha. I caught one of the buses that would take us to the start at around 4:45 a.m., and had a good chat with the lady next to me on the ride up. We got to the start with about an hour to spare, so I hung out in the porter potty line for a bit. It was very dark outside still, the stars were stunning, and the air was very cold but not too bad. While I was chilling by the pottys, I looked across the road (just a two-lane highway) and noticed some bushes moving about, like an animal was there. It was too dark to see much, but after a while of letting my eyes adjust i could just make out the huge shape of a moose!! Finally it lifted up its head, not even ten feet off the road, and just looked at us. I could tell it was about two years old or younger, so I knew momma moose wasn't too far away. I pointed her out to other people around me, and we couldn't believe that moose didn't care we were there! She just kept eating from the bush and would occasionally look up and stare at us. I watched her for a bit, until I noticed people were trying to get close to get a picture of her. Idiots. Ha ha! Finally one of the race directors drove their truck right up next to it to push it back into the forest and away from the thousands of runners milling about. Smart move.
Anyway, after seeing my favorite animal in the world, I was feeling pretty happy! What made me even happier was that they gave us space blankets and gloves, for free! This meant we were all warm and happy until the race started, which makes it easier to run for sure. At 6:30 sharp, we were off! It was still dark, with just a tinge of light in sky behind us. It got lighter about 3 miles in, so that we could enjoy the full splendor of this amazing canyon. I had never been up this canyon, but it is now my favorite Utah canyon. The colors! The trees! I was on cloud nine. We were running on this forest highway and it was just breathtakingly beautiful. At one point I had my favorite song on, the air was crisp, the fall colors were perfect, the forest smelled divine (I caught a whiff of elk which made me giddy) and everything, in that moment, was perfection. I had the biggest smile on my face and my feet felt so light and quick. Nothing could bring me down!
I was right in thinking the downhill would help me out a lot. I was hitting a 9:30 pace (which I hadn't been able to do on flat land in ages) and even 5 miles in I was still feeling great. Of course, there were those moment where it got really steep downhill and my shins started hurting, but since I was mentally prepared for that I was able to run through the pain. It was easy to stay happy in this race, even through the pain, my surroundings were just so amazing and I was in my element.
I usually don't start trying to guess what my time will be until I'm 6 miles in, after which I can figure out nearly exactly what pace I should try and hit in order to hit a PR from there. When I hit 6 miles, I looked at my time and knew in that moment that I could easily beat my previous time if I kept under a 10 minute pace. I knew I had this in the bag, since I had been hitting such great miles during the race. My fastest mile was mile 8, which was about a 9:06.
We came out of the canyon at mile 11, and we crossed a street and headed onto two running trails which took us in the general direction of the finish. This is where it got quite difficult, as my quads were so completely trashed and my feet hurt so bad, it was hard to keep a good pace. Somehow I managed to stay under 10 minute miles. Those last two miles are always the hardest, and especially this time because I no longer had the downhill to help me out. They were gently rolling miles, but finally we crossed another street and saw the convention center, and knew the finish line wasn't too far now. The last half mile i pushed as hard as I could, because I knew a great finishing time was within my grasp. As I rounded the last corner, I took out my earphones (my tradition in every race, I like to hear people cheering me on in that last quarter mile) and started sprinting to the finish. I didn't have much left in the tank, which is how I prefer it because that means I worked hard! I crossed the finish in 2:07 and was so happy that I thought my heart would burst. Also my quads. Ha ha. Even though nobody was there to cheer me on, I didn't care. I gave it my all and ended up getting a PR on less than 4 weeks of training. It was amazing!
So now it is three days post-race and my quads are still so sore I have a hard time going down stairs. Sunday was especially bad! But because I hadn't been that sore in so long, I've been enjoying it!! Plus it prevents me from signing up for a race too soon. ha ha! However, I have every plan to take the next two months and just train as hard as I can for the turkey trot on Thanksgiving. I plan on breaking an hour in that race, and in order to do that there is going to be a lot of speed work and hills and simulation runs. I could not be more excited! I'll take about 1.5 weeks off from running, but then it is back to grind! I've found a new appreciation for running after this race, and I'm still on a happy high that I don't plan on coming down from anytime soon.
This may just be my next full marathon :)
1 comment:
MOOSE!!!
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