Horsetooth Half Marathon

Start of the race, I am directly beneath the yellow pedestrian sign, in a lime green top and blue shorts. Troy and Annie waiting at mile 2 Good form at Mile 7 Cruisin’ at Mile 9 Mile 2 Check out the leg muscles at Mile 9 Another at Mile 9 Rounding the turn and seeing the finish Me with the cheering squad in the picture at Mile 9 (minus Roger the photographer)

I had to do a 12 mile long run this week so at the last minute I decided to enter the Horsetooth Half Marathon. Boy am I glad I did! Despite the short notice, Chris, and my mom and dad in laws (Marla and Roger) and Troy (with Annie) all came to watch. The course is really hilly for the first half of it. In fact the first two miles were up some pretty steep hills. Luckily the cheering clan was at the top of the first hill...after 2 miles!

There were two more huge hills over the next 4.5 miles, and they were massive. It made it hard to get into a rhythm, but also made the race more exciting and less of a “slog” (is that a word?...you get my drift). They closed the road that we were running on so I didn’t see my cheering squad again until a little after mile 7. It was so nice to see them and smile! I was done with the hills and my brain was telling me it was time to pick up the pace for the last 5 miles, but I didn’t really feel like it. So I kept a comfortable pace, reminding myself that this was supposed to be my long training run.

In the last 3 miles I saw the hip-hip-hooray squad again, and I got passed by 5...yes count them, 5 women. They were all looking good and the path was flat, so why not pass the girl in the green top! I reminded myself about the training run mantra, and that I was feeling good, so just keep it steady.

The finish was wonderful. You heard the crowd, I saw my cheering crew, I turned a corner and there it was. There were lots of people cheering and it felt so good to know that I was about to be done.

When you cross the line they hand you a 22 ounce glass bottle of Fat Tire beer. I couldn’t even “think” beer, but it was cool to the touch, so I put it against my cheek. I looked around for my cheering squad and the first thing I laid eyes on was the massage tables, so I bee-lined over to them. My crew found me at the massage table getting my post race rub down. I was pretty sore the rest of today, and even today I am tight and sore.

But it was a really fun race, and Roger got some terrific pictures of me running. It’s so nice to have to good running shots, it helps me to see the physical progress I have made these past 6 months!

Here are my stats on the race: Official Time: 1:40:46 6th in 20-29 age group (see a trend?) 17th overall woman 96th overall in the race Total race participants...they say around 1000

Mile split times: Mile 1&2 combined (all uphill): 17:01 Mile 3 (all downhill): 6:56 Mile 4: 7:28 Mile 5: 7:04 Mile 6: 7:04 Mile 7: 7:53 Mile 8: 7:25 Mile 9: 7:28 Mile 10: 7:41 Mile 11: 7:52 Mile 12: 8:02 Mile 13: 7:54 Last 0.1: 0:44