Leprechaun Lope

While I was in Utah I decided to run a 10k with my friends Valerie and Sabrina who used to be my running buddies in Portland. Our original plan was to run a half marathon, but Valerie had a baby 3 months prior to the race and I just wasn't feeling up to a half marathon yet. I am so glad I decided to just do the 10k. I remember all my long training runs while training for The Suavie Island Half and I don't miss them at all. Don't get me wrong, I will probably train for another half in the future, but now isn't the time. I didn't really have a goal time for this race because I have never done a 10k before so I wasn't sure how fast I could run it. I also wasn't sure how the altitude would affect me. When we got to the race start we had no idea what the course would be like. We just prayed that it wasn't uphill. Well our prayers were not answered because the first 3 miles were completely uphill into the canyon. I remember just getting colder and colder the higher up the canyon I got. My lungs were burning within the first 2 miles of this run and I blame the altitude for that.The only thing that got me through the first 3 miles was knowing that as soon as I got halfway I would be going back downhill the rest of the race. I think I averaged about 9 minute miles on the way up and 7 minute miles on the way down. I was the first female to finish in my age group 25-29 and I was the 4th female overall to finish. I think my time was around 51 minutes.