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| Yup, that's almost 600m elevation gain! |
First, let me say, there were hills on the course. A lot of hills. I know, that's a huge surprise for a race in the mountains at about 1,400m altitude. When I was thinking how to run, I saw an elevation profile online that mentioned ~400m of elevation gain. That didn't sound that bad -- I recently ran in Manchester, NH with ~350m, so no big difference, right? Well, post-run (and elevation correction), my Garmin says the actual climb was ~600m. Shame on me for believing everything I see on the internet.
If you are a regular reader, you've probably heard this race's story before, so I won't go into detail. I went out way too fast and burned shortly after half distance (see that big hill between 21-28 km? Yup, right there). Could have started out slower, or could have paid more attention when I noticed I was working way too hard during even the first 5k. But I seem to perpetually overestimate how prepared I am for these things.
Frustration from not learning aside, the race was really beautiful. These red rocks in Arizona look amazing and, though painful to run, the hills did provide quite the view. I'll totally put Sedona on my places-to-go-and-hike list. I'm also putting my faith in the race photographers -- some of those views were truly epic.
After I finished, I saw I had gotten first in my age group. Now that's something new. Still doesn't make me less frustrated because I ran the race very badly (20 min positive split?!) and I knew I could have done much better. Especially if I had learned from all the other races I'd crashed similarly.
I should probably end on a positive note after all the ranting. January was a really strong month in training for me (compared to before), so at least the base mileage should come in handy for not repeating the same error in next races. The first of which is almost 3 months away, in Illinois.
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