….and My Story Runs On….

My first time in Moab did not disappoint!  When I heard about this race, I got excited because there are not too many women only races anymore.  I’ve been doing Ladies Training Programs for races and this one seemed to fit perfectly.  I’ll start with the areas of improvement (in my opinion) and finish on the positive!

The Not So Good Stuff

• I picked this race with some hesitation because it was a road race and not a trail. I prefer trail over road any day.  The course was beautiful so it made up for the fact that it was on road.
• I believe this race either had a new race director or new to this race so this might be why there were a few things that I think could’ve been improved.
• The slope in the road drove me crazy. I had to keep moving from side to side because I could feel it effecting my hip (through body sensing it was exactly the same feeling I had when I ran this marathon and had the same issue).
• I heard this was a low key race but the start line was too low key for my taste.  I love it when you get pumped up by the music and MC at a race.  It seemed like they were scrambling to get things set up.  There was some music but you could barely hear it and it was not the type of music that gets you pumped up before a race. There was no one making any announcements. Since many people come from out of town for this race and it had a theme, I’d figure they could’ve been asking questions and interacting with the participants more:  “how far did you come?”, “who came the furthest?”,”who’s first half marathon”, etc.  There was none of that and at 6am, we just left the start line just like that.
  

  Start line picture! We pumped ourselves up 😉

• They said there would be aid stations every 1.5 miles but I don’t think that was true. I had plenty of water because I know better but the first one was at mile 3. I heard the 1.5 mile one was set up late, after I went by that spot, but considering I’m a middle of the packer, it should’ve been there. Aid stations volunteers were good but I would’ve expected much more fun with the theme. We only saw 3  “Brad Pitts” going around at the start/finish line.  I’d suggest a theme contest for the aid station volunteers.
• I would suggest to hold the award ceremony earlier. The race had a generous time limit but when they did the awards, most of those participants had already taken off.
• I can’t believe that with that gorgeous scenery there weren’t more photographers. There were some amazing views the whole way and I noticed one photographer on the way back.  When I get the email the other day about the race photos, I had 2 pictures from the same exact spot.  Glad I stopped to smell the roses and take pictures myself but I wasn’t in most of them…

The Good Stuff

• My first experience with the race director was emailing him and asking for a discount code that I could offer to my group of ladies and he was very accommodating.
• The scenery was breathtaking!  I’d have to rank this as one of the top 5 most scenic races I’ve ever done.  I had no time goals for this race and purposely walked several times because I wanted to be present, soak it all in and remember the moment.  Might as well get my money’s worth! The pictures don’t do it justice! (more at the bottom of the blog)

As we started the race, this was the view!

Red cliffs and rocks on both sides of the Colorado river

• It was an out and back course which I’m normally not crazy about but in this case, we had great scenery the whole way and it was cool to run it back.  One of the funnest parts was watching the front of the pack and the winner come our way. We got to cheer them on as they flew passed us and they shouted thank you back at us.  I got to see all my running crew while running on the course which was awesome.
• We had to take busses to the start line from an elementary school and that process was well organized.
• The expo was small as I suspected it would be but we got some good swag:  a tech race shirt, socks and the medal was the car jumping off the cliff in the form of a small belt buckle.  Very cute!
  

  Finisher with my belt buckle!

  

  After the race we headed to Moab Brewing company to get our free beers earned as part of the race. Swag shirts!

   

• The road was closed off which was nice. At one point, I could hear some type of music…then I realized it was drums.  It kept getting louder and louder until I reached the sound.  It was a female group of drummers that stayed there the entire time!  They were the highlight on the course for sure!
  

  All female drumming group on the race course rocked it!

• There was plenty of food at the finish and the Thelma and Louise trivia contest was fun after the awards ceremony. They gave away some pretty cool prizes.  Our group had just watched the movie on Thursday evening when we arrived there and I am sure we were not the only ones.

Would I recommend this race?  Yes!  The things that I mention that could’ve been better were not deal breakers and maybe just an oversight.

Would I do this race again?  No.  The main reason is becauseI like trail so I rarely do road races, especially out of town.  I will however be looking at some of Mad Moose Events trail races in Moab because I love the location!  I just want to experience it on trail.

The best part for me was spending 5 days with 6 amazing women.  I trained them as part of the Ladies Training Program so we got to bond leading up to the race and the weekend was the icing on the cake!  We did some awesome sight seeing, our first relay beer mile and laughed so hard our stomachs hurt.  One of the best weekends of my life!  We had way too many pictures so I found a few to share some of the highlights 😉

Dead Horse State Park where Thelma and Louise jumped off the cliff with their car (sorry if you haven’t seen it!) Thanks to Michelle for making us cool hats, getting us matching shirts, and making lots of themed goodies for us!

More gorgeous race scenery and couldn’t pass the photo opp of the back of one of my The Running University shirts. Jug Handle is the name of the one of the cliff structures.

For obvious reasons, the Jug Handle 😉

The initiation for most of these ladies to the Beer Mile Relay! Thanks to Lori for organizing it! Thanks to ChiRunning, we were all still ready to keep going after the half marathon. This was one of the funnest parts of the weekend!

Arches National Park! More breathtaking scenery! I wanted to get under the arch with a few of the other ladies but chickened out because of the heights.

Drove my Monument Valley and had to stop. One of my favorite places in the world!

From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)