The only thing I knew about the course prior to the start was that it was not an out and back, which I was happy about. I never liked running races where I knew the elevation/distance I would be running back. This point-to-point course basically made a loop around the Black Mountain Regional Park with plenty of climbs and turns as well as a ‘creek crossing’ which was more like water flowing from a wash. The course director did warn us that the distance was a little more than a 15K, but according to my Garmin, I only ran an additional .13 miles, which isn’t bad.
There were two hills that were really tough for me, the first one just before the 6-mile mark which was totally unexpected. When I saw the elevation profile before the race, it looked like you start off the race going downhill, a few gradual uphills in the middle and then a huge uphill finish. The particular hill in the middle was either too long or steep (or a combination of both), but as I was looking up ahead at runners working their way to the top I noticed most, if not all runners started walking. Going back to high school cross country, we were never told to walk up hills and/or I just avoided walking in any circumstance, and I still try to use that strategy to this day. Unfortunately, I had to walk the latter part of that hill like everyone else, which was still painful to do. It looks like it was a 200 feet climb within a very short distance. The 2nd hill was a more gradual, but definitely longer one before the finish, which felt like it would never come.
In terms of pacing, it was definitely not as evenly paced as my last (flatter) half marathon. Because it was a smaller race, I started off pretty close to the front at the start. But to avoid getting passed by too many runners, I ran a faster pace than I was prepared to run for the whole race. There were parts of the course that were single track, which helped keep me going at a reasonable pace, but I did have to surge past a slower runner at one point. I gave one final push just before the finish, although I did run out of energy at the very end and mistakenly stopped at the start, when the finish was a few yards after that (very deceiving since all I was looking for was a sensor on the floor, which was there!
I get a break this weekend and then on to my next race the following weekend in LA, another inaugural one: Hollywood Half Marathon. I wasn’t going to run it, but my cousin (who ran the LA Marathon in the pouring rain with me last year) actually asked me about it. He visited me in SD and we went for a run together and I was able to convince him to sign up for this half, which I’m hoping is a better experience than the full.