This ended up being a pretty bad run for me. (I DID do better than last year, though!) Here is how it all unfolded.

Brett and I drove though an incredible amount of smoke from all of the forest fires going on between the northern California coast and Mount Shasta. We couldn't even see the mountain until we were almost to town! That is really crazy! We had to drive with the windows up and the air conditioning cranking and it was still smokey in the truck! There were flames right on the side of the highway and we had to follow fire trucks part of the way. We were wondering if it was going to be a wise idea to run in the smoke.

We went to dinner at our favorite little Mount Shasta hangout (Billy Goats Tavern) and had a yummy burger and a beer before going to bed pretty early.

On race morning, I stuffed a banana into my face and we hurried to the race to get a decent parking place and sign up for the race. It was a beautiful morning! Oh so clear and no smoke! Yeah!

Fast forward. I got lined up toward the front of the crowd. There are two races that start at the same time so there were about 4000 people crammed together! No time to do anything resembling a warm-up. Dammit! The guns went off and I started weaving in and out of the people who think they are fast! Ugh! I can't stand those people! I was feeling pretty yucky. The 3500 foot elevation was very noticable to this sea level gal. My breathing rate was up and labored. My heart rate was elevated. My legs were starting to burn. All this happened before the one mile mark! When I finally reached one mile, I was at an 8:05 pace. Oh, not good for wanting to break 40 minutes! By the two mile mark, I had settled into a hard pace that I knew I could maintain until the last 1/2 mile which is all uphill. At mile 4, I was just under 33 minutes! I was pretty pleased with my re-evaluated pace. (I had skipped all of the water stations so I wouldn't be slowed down.) The last 1/2 mile was a death march! I got really dizzy after the first hill and just about puked. I managed to keep it down. The last hill leads to the finish. I had nothing left. I just could not pick up my feet any faster. I crossed the finish line and walked around a little in the heat and drank lots of water to bring my core temp down. I had a wicked headache, too. I was really dehydrated. In the end, I did better than last year when I lived at a higher elevation than Mount Shasta! Last year, I finished in 43:06. I guess you could say that I made a massive improvement over last year even though I felt horrible.

Go up to elevation earlier in the week. Drink at the water stations. Drink more water the day before the race. Eat a better breakfast.

Walked over to check out my age group placement to find out that I was registered as a 61 year old male! :O Tried to get it fixed but none of the race officials were interested in helping me.


The elevation and lack of proper hydration.


The Mount Shasta 4th of July Race is a fun event. There are tons of vendors and the race course is really pretty and pretty easy.