Vernonia Half marathon...

Wow. Where do I start? To say I am disappointed would be accurate, but to say that it was pure comical craziness and yes I am still glad I did it would also be accurate. I followed through with a committment and goal and that feels great.

It wasn't until this week that we started to think it was going to rain on the race, possibly very hard. I adjusted to that. no problem. It's just rain. As the day approached, we realized we might be running into hard winds. Okay...a bit more challenging, but we're still going to do it.

then Friday night the forecast shows a winter weather warning. 3-5" of snow overnight. WHAT? I didnt' know that Vernonia is 2000ft above sea level. didn't know any of these things.

When we started heading up there saturday morning, I was still very optimistic that this was going to be a GREAT race!.....as we got into Vernonia and were following the trail, I could see that it was covered in 2" of slush. Slush is slippery I thought and I know how paranoid I am running on anything like that, I don't want to break a leg!...the conditions got worse and I started to face the reality that this was not going to be the race I could set my personal best record on. That was the disappointing part for me. I had prepared myself physically and mentally for a race where I could run my heart out, a city race. Not an array of obstacles through the mountains:(:(

We finally all agreed (me, steve, Lee and Val) that we would just have fun and try to finish this course!

We bundled up REALLY warm, b/c it was 32 degrees(yes, that's freezing). The first 2miles was an out and back along a CLEAR paved pathway. flat. Perfect!! This might not be so bad I thought, lol.

As soon as you pass mile 2, you head up hill..... FOR 6 MILES over slushy paths. My knee was really starting to hurt around mile 6 which was a bit worrysome b/c I have NEVER had knee trouble in my 4mo's of training. I can only attribute it to the steady up hill climb the whole way.

Anyway, back to the race....So.. THEN (sorry, i'm actually laughing to myself when thinking back on it) at mile 8 you hit the TRAIL!....yes for the next 5.1 miles it is still up hill and a mix of deep MUDD, Gravel, SNOW, and in some places completely washed out so at one point around mile 11, I had no choice but to step into 6-8" deep water. I'm not sure how deep it was exactly but it was ankle deep filling both shoes with water:) .

The whole race I kept thinking to myself "When is it going to flatten out??!! When will it go back down hill???". At Mile 10 there is a 100ft straight down drop....but only to find a much longer steeper up hill again for the rest of the way. Poor Val fell down the hill it was so slippery and gross. when you finally hit what you think is the end, then send you up another steep incline for the last probably 500 yards. alot of people walked it, I tried to run it but I think my running at a steep incline was slower than my walking would have been! lol.

Steve had passed me back at mile 8 and so I was pretty happy to see his smiling sweaty face at the finish line. Actually at mile 8, I tried to grab a cup of water at the water station and he smacked my butt to which I CHOKED on the water and took off running after him! lol

I fell about 10min behind my goal, but considering the condtions I was actually surprised with the time I got. I still placed 3rd in my age group out of 60 women, got a cute little ribbon, won a Peach pie and got to hang out with great friends along the way:)

Unfortunately, I didn't go to run an obstacle course.....I went to run a fast race and set a personal record...so now I am trying to find a race in the next 1-2wks so I can run another half marathon with hopefully better conditions and preferrably on roads!;) I have not given up. One guy said I did really well ( to which I rolled my eyes-he didn't knwo this was a ridiculously slow time for me) but told me to think about it as another training run.....so that's what I'm doing. I guess that was my saturday long run for the week!....hopefully next week's race is better:)



and Steve, amazing! i can't believe he ran an average 8:19 mile through those conditions! he is a runner for sure and I'm excited to see what he can do with this sport:) I love him and I'm thankful he decided to run with me.

Me, I ran an average 8:37 mile:) a good time but considering my last half was a 8:21 you can see why I'm not doing jumping jacks:)

can't wait to get back out there and hit that 8:00mile pace for my next half:):) Like I say to Megan, "NEVER Quit!. We are NOT Quitters!":):)