Snow Canyon Half Marathon

A few weekends ago I ran the Snow Canyon Half Marathon in St. George. Despite being a fairly avid runner since intermediate school I've never ran a half marathon. It's really the first time I really had something to train for since high school, so it was really good for me. There was perfect weather that day and the run was just beautiful. The first 9 miles were through Snow Canyon State Park and it was really pretty. Lots of cool red rock formations and stuff. This is me at mile 9 and feeling pretty good. Tim was a pal and came down with me. I was actually hurting a little here so I had him fill up my waist water holder thing I borrowed from Kelii and meet me down the road with it so I wouldn't have to stop at the aid stations.


I finished in 2:03:01, which was a lot faster than I anticipated. I was very satisfied for it being my first race ever. During the whole race I felt pretty bad about myself because there were all these old ladies that passed me. I guess I'm not in as great shape as I thought.


Despite the look on my face in the next picture I was not feeling very good when I finished. My lungs were fine, but my legs were not. The first 3 miles were really steep downhill and really killed my legs. I knew it was going to be downhill going in, but I didn't realize a 7% grade was that steep. That and the fact that I ran it 15 minutes faster than I did when I trained probably killed my legs.


It was a lot of fun though and I think I'll run 1 or 2 more next summer. I'm already running the Wasatch Back next summer, a 12 man 188 mile relay from Logan to Park City, with a group of people from work. That should put me in pretty good shape for another half!