Deadwood Mickelson Trail Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I'll try to keep it short. :)

First, splits with AHR:
Mile 1: 11:54/155
Mile 2: 10:04/159
Mile 3: 10:14/154
Mile 4: 10:12/154
Mile 5: 10:21/157
Mile 6: 11:16/161 (hit it late...)
Mile 7: 10:52/156 (I had hit the mile split thing late)
Mile 8: 9:32/163 (major downhill)
Mile 9: 10:20/155
Mile 10: 10:50/151
Mile 11: 9:54/159
Mile 12: 10:20/156
Mile 13: 8:35/157 (wow...did I speed up that much????)
The 0.1: 0:30/152

Overall AHR = 157...low end Z2. I don't have too much faith in the mile markers. They should have all been the EXACT same distance from the marathon markers (um, 0.1 miles maybe?) and they seemed to be either long or short and never the exact same distance. So weird. I can't really use my GPS data because it didn't have a signal most of the time. :(

Again, this course is almost entirely downhill--it was the theme of the weekend. I think we started at 6200 feet and went down to 5k or lower. Slightly cool at the start so I wore a long sleeve. It lasted a mile then went around my waist. The first mile was slightly uphill actually. Hence why it was so slow. I was lined up near the 10 minute milers which made me a bit nervous since I didn't want to start too fast. But luckily no one seemed to sprint the start.

My plan was Z1 for 5 miles, Z2 for 5 miles, and whatever I had left for the last 5k. I was having trouble staying in Z1 despite feeling like I was running a very comfortable pace. It wasn't above low Z2 though, so I went with it.

The early miles really ticked by quick. Miles 2 and 3 were WAY quicker than 1. Downhill. :) BEAUTIFUL scenery! Around Mile 4 I started to feel it. SO not good. The legs were definitely hurting! The second half of Mile 5 was uphill and was part of the muddiest section of the trail. The Black Hills got 7 inches of rain last week so the runoff was insane. Most of the trail was fine, but there were several sections that were just really muddy. And Mile 5 had several of them. In fact, there were many places where we were running single file on the side of the trail in the grass and it was still wet.

The first part of Mile 6 was also upill. Then we went CRASHING downhill for Miles 7 and 8.

I was trying to do a walk/run. But it really didn't have a system. At first I was going to walk a minute every mile, but at the first mile marker there were still too many people. So I didn't do the first walk break until past Mile 2 when I hit the first aid station. Then I did several walk the first minute of the mile. But sometimes I would forget. Like between 7 and 8...I was going SO fast downhill I just forgot! I think it happened again at mile 9 too. Then I skipped the one at Mile 12 because it was so close to the finish. Whatever. In the end, I walked probably on average every 2 miles.

Back to the race. I did pick up the effort after Mile 5. Definitely Z2. But somewhere around Mile 9 or so I just got WAY too tired. My legs were toasst. Lots of things just HURT with every step. Legs, feet, ankles...all of it. I actually turned the bad ankle once or twice and then going down one big hill I "jammed" it. That f'ing hurt.

So, once mile 10 hit and I was supposed to be giving everything left in the tank...but the tank was EMPTY. I had a couple of fast miles in there where I didn't take walk breaks and did pick up the pace a little bit. But I was honestly just hanging on. At least I didn't seem to slow down!

I passed a couple of people in the final mile, did my cartwheel and ran across the line. Snuck in JUST under the 2:15 mark which had been my secret long-shot goal!

Train for the race. I executed as well as I could--I gave the "push" a try and it just wasn't going to be my day but I tried. If I had trained, it might have worked!

Walked around thinking about how much pain I was in. Ate a banana (yes, my THIRD of the day) and picked up my drop-off bag. Good Jen had RECOVERITE in it! Yay, Jen! That was all I had time for. I hopped the bus and headed straight to Crazy Horse!


Lack of run training (third RR in a week and I sound like a broken record!) and the fact that I started the race sore already.


Wow. If you EVER get a chance to do this race you SHOULD! The scenery is just beautiful and the whole thing is run on a crushed gravel rails to trails trail. If you run the full you have to run uphill first (or as uphill as an old railroad bed gets) or if you run the half the whole bloody thing is practically downhill! Two little uphills that I remember. About a half mile at the beginning then another mile in the middle. Not much in the way of post-race activities put on by the RACE but it ends in DEADWOOD where there are plenty of things to do! Anyway, the scenery alone makes it awesome. For me it was like doing a nice supported trail run. I wish I wasn't in so much pain the whole time!