Last year I ran this race in 1:32... this year I really wanted to run under 1:30. Forecast for today was 97 so I knew that running 1:30 was a stretch considering the race didn't start till 7:30. The first 4 miles were fine. There was a lot of shade and I was feeling good. 6:51, 6:45, 6:52, 6:54 Miles 6 and 7 there was NO SHADE and it was soooo HOT already. 7:02, 7:15 Started realizing that sub 1:30 wasn't going to happen. I was OK with it. I had prepared myself for this possibility because of the weather. Some things you just can't control. I had been drinking 2 glasses of water at each station and dumping 2 over my head. It helped but just still so HOT!!!! The first 6 are down a canyon but for whatever reason coming down the canyon was so HOT. Once we got out of the canyon there was a tiny breeze and the last half of the race was cooler than the first half. Jackie told me at 6.5 she was DONE!!! I felt the same! We decided to WALK. Can you believe it? Lots of people started passing us. I could hear a few of them snicker..... kind of like... "Oh you ran too fast down the canyon and now you can't handle it." It didn't bother me so much especially because I paid attention to who they were and passed them all up again!:) The walk was nice and I told Jackie don't worry about it not a big deal it was too Hot and not worth it. We walked for almost a half mile. Mile 7 10:20 Starting running again and felt tired but Ok. We just ran easy for the next couple of miles and already starting passing some of the people who passed us while we were walking. 7:43, 7:27 I started feeling like I wanted to be DONE. It was so HOT and I felt like I really had to start working for the rest of the race. There were 3 women Jackie and I kept leap frogging with. She and I would take it really easy at the water stations and take our time. They would all pass us and then before the next water station we would pass them. We got ahead of them around mile 12 and I was just hoping they wouldn't pass me again. I really felt like I had to work for the last 2 miles. Jackie was a few steps ahead of me and I had to surge a couple times to get a bit closer to her. The last half mile you can see the finish line and it is a bit daunting. With about 200 meters to go I surged to Jackie and we started sprinting to the end. It was painful. I crossed just barely before her but knew I hadn't beaten her because she always waits to cross the start line a step behind me for situations like this..... she beat me by .02 of a second!!!!!!! We finished in the same second!!!!! We took 2 and 3rd in our age group!!!! I would have been sad if she was 3rd and I was 4th. I will have to remember at the next race that she does this and remember to cross the start after her. :) 7:31, 7:47, 7:51, 7:25 I talked to one of the ladies that we were leap frogging and she said she told her friend "Damn-it! these two girls kept walking and they still beat me!!!" We passed a guy around mile 12 and he said to us " You girls are doing pretty good for walking so much!" I thought that was pretty funny! Jackie and I wear the same clothes to each race. We call them our "team clothes". We are dumb... but people remember us. I am sure the picture of us crossing the finish line is GREAT we were sprinting so fast and everyone was cheering it was really fun! My husband and kids and mom were there and it was fun for my kids to see me race. My kids were so excited and they had been counting the women. They were so excited I was 14th.! Last year we finished 14 and 15th. (I was 14th by 20 seconds ;) but ran 6 min faster and this year we finished 13-14th so everyone's times were considerably slower. The heat is too hard to overcome.
| 