New "comeback" PR. Slacker Half Marathon. Although I don't really know if I can consider it a true PR since we dropped 2200 feet. But this race is notorious for people trashing their quads from all the pounding, plus the entire race is at fairly high altitude which slows things down regardless of elevation drop. The temps at the start were a little cool but towards the end were really heating up.

While there were lots of down hill sections, I was surprised at how rolling the course was where you could lose time only to try to "make it up" as you go. It was a very good race as I was probably in 12th place at the mile and slowly but surely moved up, place by place, until I reached second. Again, I was slowly but surely, moving closer and closer to first and had there been another half mile I would have caught him without a doubt. I would say I was probably about 4 minutes or more behind him at the 7 mile mark since I could never see him at that point so I made up big time to catch everyone in front of me. Just missed first by 25 seconds.

It felt good because no one could respond as I was passing them. This year was the year for the masters. Four of the top five were over forty, although none of the fast guys from previous years were there to run.

Prior to the race I read and was told to take it smart on the downhills because by the time we reach Georgetown, our quads would be trashed. But for me, I just leaned over my stride, lengthened the stride a little longer than normal, and just attacked all the downhills, without spending much time on my feet at any one time. It felt as though most of my foot strikes were springy most of the way.

The last mile of the race winds through town and has some small rolling hills that really feel a great deal more difficult than they really are, after all that elevation drop. However I think I probably made up most of my time from first during this last mile because I just pushed as hard as I could.

At no time did I feel too fatigued or did my quads hurt. I did about a mile cool down afterwards that probably helped later.

Not a great deal. I ran conservatively when I needed to and pushed it when it was appropriate.

Ran about a mile very easily and then did some good stretching.


The high altitude of the course affected the performance to a point but the elevation drop helped. Even the altitude at the end of the race was over 8400 feet.


There were enough aid stations and the post race activities were pretty good but the mile markers weren't very well marked. The first mile was way long and some of the miles were way short, making it difficult to know exactly where you were. However, if I'm able to run the race next year, I will. Overall, it was a good race venue.