On September 10, I ran the Big Cottonwood Half Marathon in Salt Lake, and what an awesome event it was! I am probably a little bit biased, as this route is basically in my back yard, and I run the canyon all the time since it is one of my favorite runs. The leaves have started changing almost instantaneously in the mountains above Salt Lake, and it made for some magnificent views during those canyon miles.
The buses loaded for the half marathon between 4:30-5:30am for a 6:45am start time. I used to be one of those runners who showed up at the very beginning of the loading window, in fear that I wouldn't get a seat on the bus. But now that I am getting old(er) and wiser, and sleep is more important to me, I tend to show up during the last half of the boarding window. I arrived in the parking lot around 5am, and was in line to get on a bus by about 5:15. I'm not sure what time my bus ended up getting to the start area, but we had plenty of time to use the restrooms, grab some water, and sit down for a few minutes before we were shepherded to the start line. Brandy and I were happy to have our space blankets to keep us warm. I think it was about 35 degrees at the start line. Brrrrr!
And here is my one and only complaint about this event. The buses dropped us off at the Spruces campground, which worked out great for the runners to have all that space to spread out and get ready to run. The downside was that our start line was a little ways down the canyon road from where that parking lot is. And all we heard was an announcement by someone walking through the lot that the race would start in 10 minutes and that was our last chance to get our gear bags dropped off in the truck (as a side note, I have never used a drop bag at a race, as I am petrified that my bag would be lost or stolen before I was able to pick it up). The problem with that was that by the time we all made it down the road to the official start line, the race had started several minutes earlier. I don't know if there was a countdown to the gun going off, but we didn't hear anything. It would have been really nice to have had a little fanfare at the start to get everyone excited about the start rather than just figuring out that we had started and seeing all the runners just starting to run when we got down to the start line. I did hear from another runner who did the full that there was fanfare and organization at the start of the full, so hopefully next year the half marathon runners will get the same treatment.
Overall, I had a great race at Big Cottonwood, and didn't start feeling any fatigue in my legs until I got to about mile 11. I had to walk for about a block along Ft. Union in a spot that I never before noticed was uphill, but other than that I was able to run the whole race. Right as I came into the finish line chute, I saw Lacy there with her daughter, stopped for a quick hug, then ran through the finish. The runner's area at the finish line was pretty great with pancakes, pizza, drinks, bagels, and I'm sure other goodies that my tired self didn't even acknowledge. And Lacy brought me a beer, which was a welcome treat after the heat that greeted us when we came out of the canyon. I was pleasantly surprised with my time of 2:13, given that I had only done one long run since the SeaWheeze Half Marathon (I still need to write that post) a month earlier, and only a few short runs in that same time period. I credit my ability to feel strong and finish well to my Orange Theory workouts that I have been doing over the last couple of months (also more on that later).
This was technically my last race of the 2016 season, although I still have a couple of 5ks upcoming in this calendar year. I am looking forward to running this race again next year, and going for a PR. Thanks to Revel for putting on such a great race, and I'll see you in about 51 weeks!
-Linsey
