The full race report is going to be longer than usual, and will take extra time to put it together. This is the abbreviated cliff notes version.
On my way to the race, I got pulled over by a policeman for speeding. We had a conversation about running and he let me off the hook!
As always, I planned on taking lots of pictures. It turns out my camera battery is dead though! Oh well. I'll probably steal some pictures from Kynan and other runners' race reports for my final race report.
I ran with Kynan (Santiago of the Sea) for over 2 hours and 11 miles, before my arches began to hurt, which had never happened to me before. I told Kynan to go on without me. He reluctantly complied. I stopped to stretch. I even sat on the side of the trail, took off my shoes and massaged my aching feet! I seriously considered dropping from the race. I discovered that running with a more pronounced forefoot strike on the uphills portions did not hurt and actually helped loosen up my arches! So I ran more uphills. And I ran faster on the downhills, while adding plenty of short walking breaks to catch my breath. There were plenty of "river" crossings, and dunking my inflamed feet in them felt so good. I ended up passing a ton of people.
I finished with an official time of 6:13:22, for 454th place out of 702 finishers, which I was very happy with! Running well is nice, but my favorite part of the day was hanging out and running with Kynan for over 2 hours. I'm not sure I would have done as well without Kynan there!
The full race report should be done by Thursday, with stolen pictures and further detail!
Looking forward to the full race report & photos. :)
ReplyDeleteSo glad you were able to find a strategy that helped your feet and had a partner to run with!
Very pretty course! I think your race was about triple the size of mine last weekend, I never saw that many people you have in your pictures after the first mile. Sounds like it was a great run! Nice job!
ReplyDelete