Glow in the Dark Half Marathon

Friday night, I ran another half marathon.  This was another one held right here in Eagle Mountain, so I couldn't pass it up.  This one had a fun glow in the dark theme and was held at night.  Once again, my friend Marci ran it with me.

We had planned to just go easy and have fun, but I tend to get a little competitive, so we ended up pushing it pretty hard, oops :)

We lined up near the front because we were running this race on the trail, and we were afraid there might be some major congestion at the start, so in order to avoid that we lined up near the front, and took off pretty fast to get ahead of the pack.  This course was a pretty challenging course, lots of hills, especially in the last half, luckily I run these trails pretty regularly, so I was pretty accustomed to all the climbing.  It was, however, way different being out there running in the dark.  We both had little head lamps on to help us see, but you could only see right in front of you.

We cruised through the first 6 miles pretty quickly, there were some good little stretches of down hill that helped us keep our pace pretty fast.

At the turn around (it was an out-and-back course), we were able to count the number of females in front of us, and we were #11 and 12.  I think we both had hopes of holding that position, but there was a couple of girls that were right on our heels pretty much the whole race.

There was a pretty major climb at about mile 9, and it really took it out of me.  I had a major side ache that I couldn't shake, and that hill had me huffing and puffing pretty hard.  Once we reached the top, I was ready for the race to be over, I still had the side ache, I was having a hard time catching my breath, and was feeling close the puking.  But I kept pushing as hard and as fast as I could.  With only 3 miles left, I kept telling myself that it was down hill to the finish, so it should be fast and easy (relatively speaking)  to the end.  Except for, somehow I totally spaced that it was actually a good 1 mile climb to the finish.  I was not expecting that, and it took all I had left to keep a decent pace.

About half a mile from the finish, a girl was starting to pass us, and I guess she was right on Marci's heels and it kind of ticked her off, so Marci just took off and was able to shake the girl.  Sadly, I was wasted and didn't have enough in me to kick like she did.  A couple more girls were able to pass me the last few tenths of a mile before the finish.  I was so frustrated, I don't like being passed, especially that close the end, but I just had nothing left in my legs.

I finished in 1 hour 57 minutes, about a minute slower than my PR, but this was a really challenging course, so I wasn't expecting to come that close.  Marci finished about a minute ahead of me.  I think I ended up being the 14th female finisher, Marci was 11 or 12th.  When I crossed the finish line, my one and only goal was to sit down as fast as I could, because I knew if I didn't, I was either gonna puke or pass out.  The lady handing out the medals asked if I was ok, but I just waved my hand and kept on walking, no time to talk :)  After several minutes of sitting on a curb, I was able to pull myself together enough to walk to the car to come home.

We had such a blast, and I'm loving these smaller races, it's fun to be in the front of the pack.  If this was a larger race, I'd have no chance of being so close to the front.  However, this course was brutal, all those hills and I didn't enjoy the whole out-and-back thing.

Now it's time to rest up and recover, cause I'm doing another marathon in a week.  I think I might be losing my mind, all this pain and suffering in the name of fun :)