Hobblecreek

This is a race my husband's family own, and we've been around it since we got married 8 years ago. This year was my 4th time I believe running it, and the 1st for my hubby Jer. I'm so proud of him. I never pushed him into the 2 tri's that he did this year, nor this running thing. He is part of an amazing new shoe company, Altra, who are making shoes that will revolutionize running, and well, I guess it's rubbing off on him. He started about a year ago and is already here, to his first half marathon. Way to go babe!
So with family that owns the race, we help with the race. Our 'race day' starts Friday about noon and ends Saturday about 3:00. It's a long day, but a good one. I've learned much from volunteering, setting up, doing packet pickup, and being around race directors. The #1 thing I've learned (aside from always bring your ID to packet pickup), is I don't want to be a race director. Ever. Fast forward to race morning. We sleep in a tent at the finish line, and after helping with packet pickup at 4:45am that morning I finally got to the top about 7am. Unfortunately not enough people got on the first load of buses so the start was delayed about 30 minutes to get the rest of the runners up the canyon. At the top I heard someone sound completely shocked it was late, she said she'd never heard of a race starting late. Really?? Maybe it's just because I race so much, but I've definitely seen it before. And yes, it's been late in the past. Sometimes the buses fault, sometimes the race directors, sometimes the athletes. The deal this time was that not enough people showed up early enough to get the first load of buses out on time. It takes 30 minutes to get up there, 30 minutes to get back, so when the first load of buses leave at 5:30 and not closer to 5:00, that means the last set of buses don't get athletes to the top till 7:15am or so, then they have a 1/2 mile walk to the top. I know they sent an email out to the later registrants asking that they be there at 5am to load the first buses, I guess not enough of them did. It stinks, I know.
It was kind of funny. They sent Jer to the top before 5am to set up a water table, so he had an orange volunteer vest on. He took it off about 7:10 because he didn't want to deal with questions anymore. Poor guy, I can't blame him. I totally don't mean to sound like I don't hate race delays and problems and that I don't get mad at race directors sometimes, I do. I hate that is messes peoples nutrition and potty timing out and that they have to wait around forever. I just try to be understanding since I see the back end of it and would NEVER want to take their place as race directors. Man that's not a job I aspire to! They do a heck of a lot of work for very little money (about $4/hr at this race in particular), to put on a good time for us athletes.Anyway, onto my race. The race started without me hearing anything, and I was close to the front. Not sure what happened, but we were off. I ran with a friend for the first 3 miles or so and it was fun to chat, but then I let her go ahead. I kind of wanted to run by myself, it seemed like too much work today to make myself keep up with someone faster :) Took me till about mile 5 or 6 as usual to feel good but I never felt super good, it never felt effortless (which once in a while fast racing does). Fortunately my stomach was fine and my body didn't complain too much and the miles seemed to pass quickly. I wanted to be running 6:30's the first 6 miles to build up a cushion for the last half, and the first 4 or so miles it wasn't happening, but then all of the sudden by mile 7 I had a 3 minute cushion. By mile 11 that had dwindled (and it didn't feel like it, but by my watch I did now have to run 7:00min/miles to make my goal. Felt achievable, just close. I ran pretty strong the last 2 miles, and came in just under my goal time of 1:30, in 1:29.43. Whew!

It was so nice to not care in the least who was around me and who might be passing or in front of me. I was only there to get my goal time and watch the clock. I ran with my cheapie Powertri stopwatch function watch, no Garmin. It was nice not to have to factor in a swim and a bike, and figuring out how those would play into my overall time, I just had to make my splits. I'm very happy with my time, it was a PR for goodness sake by 4 or 5 minutes, and under the goal time I wanted. I did exactly what I wanted! I just wish I got more "excited" about it. I think it may just be that I'm tired and have raced a lot. I'm ready for a break after next week's Utah Half.

Good friends Heidi and Crystal who also ran Hobblecreek. Great job ladies!!
We'll see you next year Jamie!

And I'm so proud of my Jer. His first half marathon, he started running about a year and a half ago, hasn't been the best with his training, but he pulled off a 1:49! I was totally surprised and almost missed getting over to the corner to watch him. My goal for him was to break 2:00, but I just had no idea what to expect from him. I ran a 5 mile trail race pacing him last month, and he did a lot of complaining and lagging, so when I saw him running the time he did and looking strong I was so excited! I finally showed some bigger emotion, and it's fine that it was for him, at least I know I can still get excited.

And excited I am.....for the UTAH HALF on Saturday!!!