Sedona Half Marathon

Well it’s been awhile, since the last post I got caught in the storm we had out here and was having a lot of fun skiing and sledding. I’m glad I haven’t had to shovel snow in the last week though because it got old pretty quickly.  I'm sure you people back east know what I'm talking about as it sounds like you have been digging out for awhile now as well.
This past weekend I ran the Sedona Half Marathon. I was using it to get back into doing long runs and to hopefully make my body hurt so I would be motivated to train. Mission accomplished my legs are still pretty sore. I knew the course was hilly (1100 ft elevation gain) but it was much more so than I expected. I was thinking being under 2:00 would be a good start to my season and I ended up running a 1:56:55 with a few walking breaks so I was pretty happy.  If you are looking for a challenging and scenic course this is one to do. If you took your eyes off the hills on the road in front of you, you see tons of beautiful red rock formations.

Let me say leading into this my legs were far from fresh as the week before I had 1 speed and 1 tempo workout and also 2 lifting sessions, arms and legs. So while my legs felt dead on the uphills they felt equally dead on the downhills. I still don’t think I’m 100% used to the elevation but certainly I’m handling it much better than when I did the Flagstaff Half Marathon in October (~2:18) and think with a bit more hill and speed training it should no longer be an issue.

Other reasons I was pleased with the race was it started at 8 and I got up at 5:30 ate and my stomach handled the effort much better than usual.  ( I used to get up at least 4 hours before a race to eat and usually work myself into an anxious state)  I also managed to stay calm up to the start of the race. And during the race when I noticed my legs were dead and I might not do as well as hoped I didn’t just give up I tried to focus on cresting the hill and running the downhills and looking at the gorgeous scenery.  In the end it worked and I ended up meeting my goal.  So while I may not be as fast as I was this time last year, I'm happy with the results and I'm excited to get in some more workouts as I think I'll be able to have some fast races with a few more months of training.
Post race I went with a few other runners to the Coffee Pot where they have 101 omlette’s to choose from, very tast. A perfect end to a race morning.