Race recap

I had a great time this weekend at the Dogtown Half Marathon.  I was nervous about the race when I saw the elevation maps before.  It ended up being great weather.  A bit cold before the start, about 36 degrees, but it warmed up once we started running.  The beginning of the race was on a trail next to the Virgin River through a canyon.  It was beautiful.  I wish the whole race was that scenery.  It was a lot of up and down for sure and I'm feeling it a bit today.  I stayed with Kirk, Devin and Skyler (Kirk's friend) for the first 8 miles.  We kept up a pace between 8:45 and 9 minute miles.  I exhausted myself heading up the hills and slowed a bit.  The biggest challenge was coming around the corner and seeing the end line, but realizing we had to run a different direction and go up.  We headed up into a subdivision.  It was a good 1-1/2 miles up hill, a big hill.  Then we went down and once again passed the end and had to do an out and back for 1/2 mile or so.  It was hard passing people that were headed towards me to the finish when I turned that corner.  I ended up with a time of 2:02:56.  Kirk and Devin were exactly the same at 1:56.  Overall, I thought the course was pretty and it was a challenge, so I feel I did well considering it wasn't just downhill.  And as an answer to Stetson's prayer....I was warm.  I dressed a little warm and had to have my jacket around my waist and was wishing for my tank top rather than long sleeves.  It all worked out though.  One down, 3 more half marathons to go for the year.  I'm also 164.6 miles down for the year on my way to 1000 miles.