I was waiting for the race results, but they are not up, so I am going to go ahead with a quick race report anyway. This year I decided not to do the 50K, as I have done the last two times. The 30K was perfect for me for the first real race of the season. Red Mountain is my favorite race of the year. It is small, friendly and the course is beautiful. I absolutely love the race directors, they always make me feel like a queen. They came up to me at the expo gave me a hug and a gift certificate for a massage and a hat and told me how happy they were to see me. They are so cute, it is a race I plan to do every year. They had Krissy Moehl speaking, who just broke the R2R2R record Tues. and has won several other ultras. She was really good. I got to see Kelli, her friend Wendy, and my old college roommate Karen Boothe and her friend. They were all doing the 50K, I did not feel like I was left out at all, the idea of moving down to the 30K was really exciting to me. 19 miles is about where I feel like crud when I run a marathon, so this length sounded perfect. Harold and I spent the night at my cousin's house. I was really excited about the race and couldn't sleep, so I read from about 2:30am to 4:30 and then got up and got ready for the race. Harold drove me up to the Ivins Park to get on the bus and then he went home to shower and get Odee. I road up with a cute gal from SL who had not run this race before and told her a little about the course. At the starting line I got more hugs from race directors and we said the pledge of allegiance, I talked to Wendy for a few minutes and then we were off. It was so beautiful up there, I went out at a nice slow pace, I was in the back only a few people behind me. I kept a comfortable pace all morning long, a 10:30 to 12:30 min. pace for most of the time. I had Harold's classical music playlist on my ipod, it was so awesome to have this beautiful music and the spectacular scenery. I never felt sore or tired until the very end. The aid-stations were great, good variety of food and drinks and very helpful friendly volunteers. I told Harold it would probably take me 4 and half hours, but I realized that if I kept up my pace I could break 4 hours, so I pushed a little harder and the last 3 miles I passed about 5 people and felt really strong. I hope my garmin is right, like I said the results are not up so I will update my report as soon as it is up. My garmin read 3:59!!!
I kept expecting to see Kelli and Krissy run past me, I told Harold, wouldn't it be cool if Kelli came in first, she is going to be the next ultra super star, she won her first 50 mile race, a couple of weeks ago at the Buffalo run, and I know we will be seeing her on magazine covers and speaking at race expos. She is so fast, and such a great person. She is always helping and encouraging others, myself included. She paced me at Painters and then came back to run me in at Goblin Valley. She is a running angel. I have an adorable picture of her running in with all her kids around her, I hope we can figure out how to post it here, it is always hard to figure that out. Anyway, what I wanted to say was Kelli and Krissy never ran past me, and I couldn't figure out why, I saw an ambulance go up the course and had a sick feeling. After finishing the race Harold and I sat with Wendy and Kelli's family and waited for Kelli. She came in about 20 min. or so after I finished and told us what had happened. Someone tampered with the course and changed the signs and diverted about 12 of the fastest runners and sent them on a wild goose chase and they ran an extra 4 or 5 miles. By the time Kelli got back on the right course, she realized her time was going to be off, so she didn't push as hard. I think I have that right, but you will have to read her report for the full details. It made me sick to think of all those runners lost on the trail because of some prankster. There was an article in the Spectrum about it and the police are investigating it. Not only do I feel sorry for the runners, but for the race directors who worked so hard to put on such a great race. It was really a bad deal all the way around. I had a great race, loved every minute of it. This is how I like to run, nice and easy and finish feeling good. Thank you Red Mountain for another fun race.
Look at little Emma out in front!! She is adorable!
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