Rocky Mountain Half Marathon

I've wanted to do one of the National Park Half Marathons for a while. I was looking at them and thought Yellowstone would be super fun. I mentioned maybe we would could stop at Rocky Mountain National Park on our way and Ty suggested we do Rocky Mountain National Park as our trip instead since it was a shorter drive and we'd have more time to spend at the park. I looked at that race and it was the day after my birthday which seemed pretty perfect so we decided on it. We didn't book early enough to get a campsite within Rocky Mountain National Park so we ended up at Estes Park Campground at Mary's Lake which I think ended up being even better. The kids had a blast on the playground with all the other kids and we were close to multiple different entrances into the park. I did some half hearted research into how necessary it is to arrive early enough to acclimate to altitude before a race. Basically it sounded like in order to acclimate I needed to get there longer before the race than we would even have for the trip, so we didn't worry about it and arrived in the afternoon the day before the race. I also wanted to do the race at the start of our trip and have the rest of our trip to enjoy hiking and trail running without worrying about a race coming up. My friend, Sara, made me feel better about not giving myself time to acclimate when she shared her experiences with running at altitude. My dad mentioned running at the Grand Canyon and I had no issues there so I looked and the start of this race was only about 800 feet higher than my runs while we were visiting the Grand Canyon and I had no issues there. So I felt pretty confident the altitude wouldn't effect me too much, but just in case I wanted to run the race more at a tempo effort than a race effort. I was hoping to be somewhere in the 1:45-2:00 range for my finishing time. I just for sure wanted to finish in under 2 hours, unless I had issues and needed to walk during the race.

I was a little nervous the morning of the race because they told us everyone needed to be parked by 5:15am for the 6:00 start. I had to get up at 4:30 and I was going to be driving through our campground in the pitch dark and then finding the start line on my own. It all turned out fine and I had no issues. The view of the sky at that time in the morning with no lights in the area was amazing and I spent some time just staring up at the sky before driving to the bathrooms to get ready for the race. I did wake up at 3:50 and couldn't fall back to sleep which was rough. I parked before 5:15 and then we walked to the start line. There was a decent amount of waiting around before the race. The other thing I was a little nervous about was the temperature at the start of the race was 39 degrees and I hadn't run in anything below 80 degrees since early June. Standing around it really didn't feel that bad. I swear 39 degrees there did not feel like 39 degrees during an Oklahoma winter. That wind blowing so cold makes all the difference. I read there would be drop bags but I packed throw away sweats and a sweatshirt just in case. They provided trash bags for you to put your drop stuff in. There were permanent markers for you to write your last name and bib number on your bag. Then you just carried your bag to the start line and tossed it on a truck they would drive to the finish line area. I wore my sweats all the way up until they started walking us to the start. Then I took them off, stuffed them in my bag, and tossed them in the truck. I wore a tank top, shorts, head band, and hydration vest. I also had gloves but I can't remember if I left them in the car or put them in my drop bag. I decided to wear my hydration vest because it was a cupless race. I thought about wearing spandex shorts and just putting a water bottle in each pocket like I've done in the past, but everything I read and everyone I talked to said if you aren't going to have time to acclimate to altitude, it's really important to stay hydrated so I wanted to carry a lot of water with me. 

The race took off and we ran partway around Lake Estes, then we turned onto a road and ran past a field with horses which was stinky. My plan was to run 8-8:30 pace, especially at the beginning of the race because almost all the elevation gain was in the first 5 miles. My first mile was 7:56 and my 2nd mile was 8:02. At about 2.5 miles a group of elk crossed the road in front of me and there was a baby with them. All the adults jumped a fence, but the baby couldn't make it. It was running along the fence, trying to jump at multiple places. The momma and baby were making noises at each other. I kept looking back to watch, but never got to see the baby make it over the fence. I hated a little bit that I was in a race so I couldn't stop to watch. Miles 3 and 4 were 8:22 and 8:31. The elevation was not steep but it was continuous. I didn't feel like I was running uphill but I could see it and my splits definitely reflect that! My legs also felt a bit off for the first 3 miles. I wasn't sure if it was because it was so much colder than I was used to or if it was due to altitude. My breathing felt fine and I didn't notice any difference. The part of my straw for my hydration vest that you suck water through had a small hole so it was slowly leaking water onto me. I found that a bit annoying with the temperatures already so cool. The whole front of my tank top as well as my shorts were soaked by the time I finished the race and I could feel it spraying out as I ran.

Mile 4

I hit mile 5 in 8:49 and we turned and started running downhill. Oh my, the views! The way out was pretty but that way back down was GORGEOUS! I'm not one to take pictures during a race but I couldn't help myself. The pictures didn't do it justice at all. I was staring at the mountains, repeatedly thinking how lucky I was to be able to run this race and experience the view. It was nice to run downhill after the continuous climb during miles 1.5-5, but some of the downhills were pretty steep. I was surprised because I felt like the inclines we went up were mostly gradual. My legs were feeling a bit beaten up from some of the steeper downhills. Miles 6, 7, and 8 were 7:48, 8:20, and 7:44. Then we leveled out on flat ground for a bit during mile 9 which I ran in 7:55. I ate a Gu at the halfway point and checked my elapsed time. I was on pace to run around 1:48 which I was excited about and decided to shoot for sub-1:50. Paul asked about the altitude of the race beforehand so I sent him a picture of the elevation chart which showed the starting and finishing elevation (which was 7,503 at the lowest and 7,923 at the highest). He noticed and pointed out a sizable hill during mile 10 and I had that in my head that last section of the race. We went up a hill and I was hoping that was the hill from the elevation chart, but I knew there was no way because it wasn't very steep. Then we hit the hill and I knew it was the one. It was rough, especially at almost 10 miles into a half, but it wasn't as bad as I expected based on the elevation chart. Somewhere around the hill a lady passed me but then didn't gap me when we hit that hill and I really focused on her those last few miles and played mind games with myself. I told myself she was 3rd place in my age group and if I wanted to place, I needed to catch her. I passed her with less than 2 miles to go, and spoiler alert, she was in my age group! I ran miles 10 and 11 in 8:30 and 7:47. It's kind of crazy that hill killed me as much as it did because that's where I really gained on the people in front of me and even passed someone going up it!

Photo I took during mile 5.

The last 2 miles were around Lake Estes and they were the longest miles! When we hit the path around the lake I knew the finish line was by the lake so it seemed like we were almost done, but we just kept going. After I passed the lady in front of me, right as we made it to the path around the lake, I really wanted to coast it in. I just kept telling myself to push so I could negative split and run as much under 1:50 as possible. Mile 12 was 8:04 and I really started to reel in the guys ahead of me. I definitely didn't all out race so I was surprised that my legs were toast at the end. I think it was mostly due to nearly 800 feet of elevation gain in 4.5 miles and then some steep and pounding downhills for the next 5 miles. I wasn't feeling great but was calculating what my finishing time would be if I hit 8:00 miles and I kept pushing. I went through mile 13 in 8:06, then finished out the last 0.1 in 7:20 pace. As I crossed the finish line, the announcer told me Happy Birthday which was fun!

Mile 13

My official finishing time was 1:46:23. I was pleasantly surprised to be in the lower range of what I thought I was capable of. I didn't do any tempo runs or speedwork for this race with my most recent speedwork being trail speedwork in May. I just ran my typical weekly volume from War Eagle through to this race and treated it more as a fun run than a race. I had such a blast and enjoyed the view so much! I was also glad I ran the race at the beginning of our trip because seeing the mountains in the distance was so awe-inspiring because I hadn't seen them much yet. It wouldn't have been as impressive after I had all the gorgeous views of our hikes and my trail run! It was the perfect start to our trip. I finished 50th out of 1,114 overall, 16 out of 727 women, and 1st out of 116 in my age group.

Finish line photos

They handed out boxes with samples after the race and I grabbed a water and a chocolate milk. The guy who finished behind me thought I was handing it to him and we got a chuckle out of that. I saw the top master's finisher who passed me around the half-way point and congratulated her. We exchanged a few words during the race when she passed me. I took a couple pictures and then walked back to the car. The awards ceremony wasn't for another 40 minutes and I didn't want to wait that long. The walk back to my car was a bit of a trek so I called mom and dad to fill them in on the race as I walked. The best ever post-race day was spent hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park and then a little bit of swimming in the pool at our campground helped stretch out my legs. I had the best view foam rolling at our campsite that I've ever had while foam rolling. I took my medal on a couple hikes with us so I could get a fun picture of it with beautiful scenery in the background.

At our campsite

At Bear Lake with Carter photo bombing.