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| The weather didn't stop people from checking their phones. |
The week prior to this race we knew there was a chance of rain but didn't know how rough it really would be.
Shortly after the alarm rudely woke me, I realized there were noises outside, took a peek out there and it was raining, blowing and thunder and lightening. I thought, Oh no!
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| Even though it was cold and wet we could still smile! |
I drove through miserable weather to Sandy where I met up with Louise who had picked up my packet the day before. She explained she wouldn't be racing as she's nervous in this weather and doesn't want to get sick prior to going to Scotland the following week. I didn't blame her. I thought I'm nuts doing this too and wondered if it would get cancelled. Later we heard another race some friends were in was cancelled because of the weather. I walked over to where the buses were waiting and my feet were soaked before I even got on the bus. There were a number of people on the bus that I knew. Josh and Becca were up the front. Elvia and Quesnel were just ahead of me, Robin Williams, Sheri Sorenson and I'm sure there were lots of others.
We really debated with our sanity doing this race in this weather. The buses arrived at the start and we stayed on them. A few people got off to use the toilets etc. We stayed on as long as we could visiting in the dry warmth knowing what was waiting for us outside. I finally decided I should but by this time it was snowing like crazy. I had rain pants, rain jacket with hood and a garbage bag with a hole cut in it for my head, plus a hat. It was so close to the time of the start there wasn't any point in getting back on the bus. Had a short chat with Dave Crawford before the race and he agreed we were nuts.
Just before the gun went, the announcer said, I have one thing to say. "You guys are CRAZY" and we were off. I heard later a number of people stayed on the buses and took them to the start rather than doing the race.
This was a race I thought I could PR in and the first mile I did pretty good considering what I was wearing, but what a shock, about 10 or 15 minutes into the race the rain stopped and the clouds started breaking up. We could see the mountains were coated in snow by this time. Off came the garbage bag. Soon after that I was started to really warm up and had to take off the rain pants and jacket AND the hat. I attached them to my belt and kept running. The temps were cool and in the final miles I did debate taking off my shirt, but decided not too, just wasn't quite warm enough.
My feet were killing me. I could tell I was getting some nasty blisters because they were so wet. I should have covered them in the first part of the race too and it might have helped.
I knew not long into this race I was not going to PR.
London passed me towards the end like she normally does!
It was fun getting pictures of some of my friends crossing the finish line and visiting afterwards.
I haven't run down Little
Cottonwood canyon very much but I know its a fast steep course and I am going to have to retry this one again next year.
Final stats: Chip time 1:52:04.6 Age Group: 10/18 Male: 76/147
Overall:
112/392
This was a race I was planning on skipping this year, but when Camille got a huge discount for our group and they changed the date I thought I have to do it. The finish is close to where I live so I didn't have to get up too early. I think the numbers were also down with participants this year. Probably because they had first changed the date from mid August to the same date as Nebo, then changed it from that to the week prior to Nebo.
