I signed up for this race on a whim. I guess the thought of actually running a race in Death Valley appealed to me. I need to think these things out before getting into them. This became a expensive race.

First I didn't think about how far this race is from my home. I left my house at 12:30 pm and arrived at about 7:30 pm. Then I ended up paying over $100.00 for a room I spent 12 hours in. Taking into consideration entrants fee, 2 fillups in gas, hotel room and food, this race cost me a bit.

Well, onto the race. It was a beautiful venue and a beautiful day. The desert this time of the year quite unbelievable. The sky was so blue. After check in which was handled in the Cork Screw Saloon or something like that. This was my first race with Enviro sports so I didnt have any idea what it would be like. Well, they are bare bones and no nonsense Enviro's. No Headphone's allowed. They said this was a Envirozone and to listen to the wind. Also no swag bags, no microphones, no starting gate or finish gate. There was this line drawn across the road that was the start/finish line.

Small race. Maybe 300 total. They were running marathon, half and 10 k. This was a Boston Qualifier and I can see why. No crowd to dodge. The marathon group might have been no more than 100 entrants. 10 k seemed to have the most followed by the half. It was a out and back course.

I wasn't really in the mood to run but off I went anyway. Kept thinking "Take it slow, get it done and go home". I thought was running around 11:00's and just kind of chugged along. I really didnt notice till about mile 5 that I felt good and maybe I should just try and set a Pr for myself. I kicked it up notch or two and just kept at it. I kept expecting to have this loss of energy hit me but it really never did. On the hills I tried to maintain my pace and on the way down I just let the legs go at whatever rate they wanted. I ended setting a PR for myself by over 9 mins. 3 half marathons this year and 3 PR's. At this rate I may someday be in the MOP.

I always read on this site about trusting your fitness. Today I came to understand what was being talked about.

Maybe start faster.

Walking around and eating.


After the 6 hour ride home, I still can't figure out if I like this race. The race is held in a beautiful area but I think they skimped on the prizes. I was really looking forward to having a finishers medal that had "Death Valley Half Marathon" on it but only the full marathoners received one. No t-shirts due to a shipping problem but they said they would mail them to us. As far as the finishing medals go, I just feel that people come a long way for this race and deserve a sovenier of it. The closest city is Las Vegas which is two hours away but most of us seemed to be from California which means most drove several hours. However I will say the staff and the volunteers were awesome. The aid stations was pretty much a buffet and the course is just beautiful.