On Tuesday I got back to running!
I ran 9 miles and felt so great! What a relief!
I was also reminded that 9 miles is my favorite distance!
Then I saw a tweet about this 15k (which is 9.3 miles!) trail race that was happening this weekend. I immediately wanted to do it since my training plan said to do a 10k or half marathon, and I had written in "trails" so this was kind of a mixture of those. But would that be too crazy?! I waited a few days to see if anyone wanted to do it with me. My awesome friend, Shannon, also immediately wanted to do it as soon as she heard about it! So, by Friday we were all signed up, hydrating and carb loading!
Saturday morning, I met Shannon and we carpooled up to Park City, which is about a half an hour away. We really didn't know what to expect, and I guess we were a bit excited so we ended up getting there an hour early. That was ok, though, it gave us a chance to go do a little reconnaissance on the trail, hang out and take some pictures. It was pretty beautiful out there! We ended up running about a mile and a half which got us nice and warmed up.
One of the sponsors was a bowling alley so this guy was there and we had to get a picture! :)
As we lined up at the start, these hot air balloons started rising above the hills. It was really pretty, and it seemed like they were there just for us, to give us a good send off! We were able to see them for about the first half mile before the trail turned around the hill.
Lining up, just taking in this beautiful venue!
The course really was so beautiful and so fun! It was definitely challenging, with a lot of ups and downs, including one uphill stretch that lasted from about mile 4 to 5.5 or so. I did decide to stop and walk a few times on the steeper hills, but they were all short and it never felt too bad. They also had 4 aid stations which I stopped at briefly for water. There was a volunteer there that I just knew from instagram so it was really cool to meet her in person and she was awesome to cheer me on when I saw her at the first and last aid stations.
I had told Shannon that I would probably come in at around 1:45 so she planned to come out and meet me at around that time, but by the time she headed out, I was on the home stretch! She took this picture of me, then ran with me the last little bit. I finished in 1:40 so that was pretty awesome to beat my estimated time. Shannon also beat her estimated time and came in at 1:12 and the FIRST FEMALE! I was so happy for her and proud of her, and it felt like I was walking around with a celebrity while we waited around for the awards and raffle.
Here's Shannon with the 2nd and 3rd place females. It was pretty exciting to actually have a reason to stick around for the awards ceremony. She won a pair of The North Face shoes so that was pretty awesome!
We met some cool people and hung out with them for a while. They asked Shannon if she was the fast Shannon they always see on Strava running around their neighborhood, but she wasn't so that was kind of funny! They also took this picture for us.
I ended up winning a pair of $60 sunglasses in the raffle which was awesome, and they gave away a ton of stuff so I think everyone who stuck around for the raffle got something. We all got pint glasses instead of t-shirts which I thought was pretty awesome because
Overall, it was just such a fun race with great support and fun people. We are planning on doing the whole series (5k, 10k, 15k & Half Marathon) next year! I'm so glad I have the fitness to be able to sign up for a race like this last minute, and I'm so glad I have such great friends who like to do spontaneous things like this with me!!
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