Backyard half marathon

I am SO far behind on my posts - I need to learn from my friends who don't write entire heart-felt essays for every post!  [EDIT: Nevermind - I don't seem able to do short posts.  I'll just have to try and schedule time to do the posts I want!]

In that spirit, I'll go ahead and do a quick recap of the first of two races that I did this past weekend. The Backyard Half, in White Salmon WA, was a free race being put on as a fundraiser for the local HS cross country team. A friend had posted about it, and since I have trouble motivating to do my long runs by myself, figured that it would be a good (if challenging) race to do!

The race had a late start at 10am, which was nice since it was a little over an hour drive over Mt Hood to get there and we had been out late the night before.  In retrospect, an earlier start might have been nice in order to have cooler weather.

Anyways, I got to the race hoping that there might be a few people that I knew there -  and there were!  It is so awesome to be able to go to races now and know people - people to wish me luck, cheer for me, etc.  In this case, one of the women, Maureen, was only slightly faster than me, so we got to run the first mile together!  Unfortunately, my calves decided to pull their usual, and cramp up super tightly for the first 4 miles, and I had to drop back.  At that point, we ended up on trail, which I'm fairly slow on anyways, and the trail started to go uphill, so my run/walk was just fine with me at this point.

As we were going uphill, I suddenly realized that I had mountain biked on this trail!  There were several points that I specifically remembered - where we parked, a cattle gate that we had to go through, an area where I threatened to quit and turn around, and then the view from the top.

Oh, the view from the top!  After a really steep 1 mile climb within the 4.5 miles of climbing, we came out at the first aid station.  We were greeted with water, food (fruit, potatoes with salt), and this amazing view:

From there, it was a run along the ridge to the ultimate viewpoint:

We have a picture (that I can't find at the moment) of 4 of us with our bikes in the exact same location.

After the ridge and the second aid station, where I had to refill my hydration pack, we started downhill.  A lot of the downhill was still exposed & in the sun, and I came across this gorgeous 3 ft long snake sunning itself in the trail. I wasn't sure what kind it was, although I didn't see a rattle, so I gave it a wide berth. Someone later said that it was likely a gopher snake.

The downhill was nearly as challenging as the uphill!  There were lots of loose rocks, parts were quite steep, and it was hot.  I don't think that I mentioned that it was about 85 degrees and sunny - one of the first hot days that we've had so far.  Luckily, I love the heat, so I just concerned myself with staying hydrated and moving!

The race was about a mile longer than a true half marathon, and I was never so excited to see a finish line in my life!  By now it was 2pm, so HOT out.  Maureen finished about 30 min before I did, waited for me, and got this awesome picture at the finish line.  Can you tell that I was so happy to be done?

After hanging around for a little while, waiting for another friend to finish (and she won one of the hydration packs!), and then scoring some free BBQ by sounding pathetic (no, seriously - some guy took pity on me and gave me a free ticket to the fundraiser BBQ that was hosted in the park), it was time to drive back home and prepare for the Vancouver Marathon on Sunday.  Post to hopefully come soon!

Anyways, this was a challenging race - while I love the heat, I don't have much experience on trails (yet), and I'm not very strong at climbing. I finished 1.25 hrs longer than is typical for a half marathon for me!  The views were amazing, though, having friends at the race was fantastic, and being able to support the local XC team (they also manned all the aid stations) was great.

Ooh - I finally figured out how to embed a map of the race! If you click on the mile markers, you can see my pace for each mile.  Wow - technology is great!