Heart Center of the Rockies - RunHalf Marathon

The run was on a beautiful, crisp fall day. The course was described as trails and road, but the trails turned out to be concrete bike paths. I HATE concrete, but it didn't turn out to be so bad. I started out fast with COgirl and Trixie for the first mile until I decided to let them go ahead, and then ran the first 6 miles at 10:00 mile pace. I maintained close to that until about mile 9 when I slowed down a bit. I then tried to kick it up for miles 10- 11 and ended up with a HUGE, knife in the ribs, side stitch that I couldn't breathe through. It took a 1/2 mile of slowing down to make it ease up. I then decided that mile 12-13 would just have to hurt, that it was only 10:00 and it wouldn't kill me. The race results said that the course was long at 13.4 miles.

My legs felt fantastic the entire race and weren't totally fatigued at the end. I felt as if I could have run for another 5 miles. I feel as if I trained right for this race.

Dial in my nutrition a little better. I only did one gel at 1:15 and about 10oz of water, but I still got the side pain. I've got to figure that one out. Otherwise, it felt great.

Walked around with my Dad who came to cheer and saw COgirl, Drew, Trixie, and other BT'rs. It was nice to see them!


Only 2 aid stations on this course, but you saw them both twice, so about every 3 miles.
Poor post race activities. Only pancakes to eat, but no water or gatorade to be seen and no fruit.

I had left my jacket tied around a tree at the start and when I went back to get it, it was gone. I was told they collected all the clothing from the race already and were taking it to Runners Roost in Ft. Collins(about a 2 hour drive for me). I can't figure out why they didn't take it to the finish.