Salt Lake Half Marathon, Recap.

I debate about whether just to shut this silly little blog down but I just can't bring myself to do it.  I like having my race recaps and training to look back on.  I have run the Salt Lake Half Marathon every year since I started running 3+ years ago.  I like that it's a course through my home town.  This race in particular starts at my Alma Mater which always feels kind of cool.  Since we were in the middle of marathon training we had a 20 miler on tap for the day.  It was really attractive to just run the extra 7 after we finished the race but we did that once last year and it kind of sucked.  The cool thing about this race is that there is no busing.  You can take TRAX to the start from multiple locations for free.  So we decided to park at the finish and then run our way UP to the start line. Once we got to the start the plan was to run out and back for another 4 miles. Then run the race.

That was the plan ...

Well we got there in plenty of time.  We parked right next to the start line for free!  Which isn't always possible in down town Salt Lake.  But the run to the starting line was seriously straight up hill the whole way.  That probably wasn't the best idea right before a half marathon.  It was kind of fun though because they also have a bike tour and so we saw tons of cyclists heading to their starting line to start before the runners.  Once we got up there it was obvious that the out and back for four miles wasn't going to work.  There were no sidewalks up there.  There was however a totally empty beautiful track!!!  So that's what we did.  Ended up needing another 4.5 miles before the race to get us to 20.  We were the only ones on there for quite some time.  It was so relaxing not having to worry about rushing to get ready for the race.  We had plenty of time.  After a while there were a lot of people that joined us on the track .. we kind of felt like little trend setters out there.

We watched the sun rise over the mountains beside us.

My selfie.  I just thought this was cool.

We finished our first 7 feeling good.

Ready to run another 13.1

The course was different than last year.  Pretty much every year I've run this (3 in a row now) they've changed the course a LOT.  This year there was quite a bit of uphill sections. But since we weren't running it for time it really wasn't a big deal.  I liked that they tried to take us on a bit of a tour of Salt Lake.  That made it fun.  We ran with Jeramie's friend, it was his first half in quite awhile.  With about 4 miles left, which is when things get hard for me is when I split off from the boys and forged ahead some on my own.  I was feeling really good!  Which surprised me.  It was starting to get warm at this point. When I had about 2 miles left my IT band started to hurt quite a bit.  I had started running in some Altra's and around the same time started to have some IT band issues that I haven't had since I started running three years ago.  I'm super bummed about that and also SUPER worried about how this will play out at my marathon in a month.

2:18:01

I walked a bit during those last 2 miles and tried to suck it up some.  It was a bit of a fight but I finished feeling good about my time and really proud that I pulled through on a total of 20.

Salt Lake Half is the ONLY one in Utah I believe to have finish line beer.

I'm not a big Miller Lite fan .. but that beer tasted wonderful.

Love running races with the hubs.

My only dislike of this race is that the t-shirts are some of the lamest.

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Do you like running hometown races?

Do you indulge in the finish line beers?  If not, do you at least give your beer ticket to someone else?