Saturday, March 17, 2012

St Patrick's Day Run! This was the Spectrum 10k in St George, Utah.
This race starts 3.5 miles up Snow Canyon, which requires you to take the provided buses up to the start.
That is always kind of fun because you can talk to other runners, but today, the temps were in the 40's in St George with cloudy gray skies and windy!! The buses dropped my load of runners off at 8:10, so we had about 50 minutes to move around to try to stay warm and have a last visit to the porta potties.
This race tops at 800 runners, and they had that many plus a couple more sign up. Of course the shirts they gave out were green, and many people wore those shirts, and a lot of others, myself too, wore some form of green in honor of St Patricks Day.

When the race finally started, i started near the back of the runners, about 800. Going down the canyon i could see ahead a road filled with a sea of runners, most of them in green. It was a very pretty sight. This canyon has red walls, and the landscape is mostly covered with sage brush and small desert type plants. They contrast with the red dirt and dark red cliffs that make up the entrance to Snow Canyon.
As you near the opening, you can see across the valley that spreads out to the next mountain range.
It's a very pretty sight, even with the gray clouds above threatening to rain, which never fell till later that nite.

I finished in 1:12:?? - an 11:41 pace. This put me 23rd in my age group of 28 ladies, and 679 overall out of 778 runners.
It was a fun race, pretty route, but i was definitely out classed with these serious runners, many who were talking about Ultra's they were training for, or their sub 20, 5k's.
Oh well, we all ran the same route, saw the same sights, and had a good time.

After the race, i still had to get 2 miles done for my 1/2 training schedule. So i drove to the Confluence Trail. On the way there i saw a sign at the restaurant Kneaders. It read: all you can eat french toast $4.99!
Well, that about did me in. I parked at the trail and used my running App to measure 1/2 mile running, then turned around and went 1 mile, then turned back to the 1/2 mile back to my car. This was torturous!
I was exhausted, and STARVING!! I had to do some walk breaks and at the 1.7 mark, i couldn't run anymore, i just walked back to the car. But my mantra for this entire 2 miles was : french toast, french toast..... that was all i could think about!! So yes, after my run, i changed into non sweaty clothes i had brought to the race with me, in case of an emergency such as this. Then went to Cracker Barrel which was right by the running trail, and ate french toast to my tummy's delight!!

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